


every other freckle

by jeannedarc



Category: VIXX
Genre: Co-Parenting, M/M, Single Dad AU, romcom, sanghyuk works way too much, taekwoon tries way too hard, they're clearly mfeo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-03-26 06:28:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13851993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannedarc/pseuds/jeannedarc
Summary: sanghyuk, single parent of the year, accidentally falls in love with the voice of a cartoon elephant while watching television with his son. things really only go downhill from there.





	1. that thing where i wanna get married to the eiffel tower

**Author's Note:**

> this idea...has plagued me for centuries so, you know, enjoy it  
> sorry not sorry for lapslock it just makes my life a lot easier since my laptop is so darn slow  
> thanks as always to [riley](http://http://archiveofourown.org/users/toastyhyun) for beta-ing, my hero

he's watching cartoons on his day off. that's the best summation of his life at the current moment, stretched out in pyjama pants and a ratty t-shirt, his son in his lap and drawn close to his chest, nose nestled in his hair while they consume some bright, flashy animation with their morning cereal. sanghyuk...he loves his son, obviously, would pull the moon from the sky on his behalf, but this isn't exactly how he expected his life to go, when he thought about it as a kid himself.

it's actually a lot better.

dongmin's a great kid, even though he has this habit of pulling on sanghyuk's hair at decidedly inappropriate times and has recently learned the word 'shit', probably from just starting preschool. he's got a lot of energy, which is currently on display as he wiggles in his spot in sanghyuk's lap. he's kind of talking, now, in full sentences, which sanghyuk is genuinely kind of sorry he missed, but he's glad to have a conversation with dongmin every once in awhile.

for example, dongmin is cheering on the cartoon spy on the screen right now, near the end of his mission, at full volume. "you can do this!" he exclaims right next to sanghyuk's ear between fits of excited giggles, bouncing in his father's lap excitedly.

"what's he gonna do, dongminnie?" sanghyuk asks in his best, most proper voice, a feat considering he nearly just got a knee to the balls as dongmin climbed him like a tree to take a big old bite of his nose.

"he's gonna beat the bad guys, dad," says dongmin, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. his little snack complete, sanghyuk covers his nose with one hand, gasping. "he always does." then he settles back in his dad's lap just like nothing ever happened.

sanghyuk noses at dongmin's hair, kisses his crown, gives him a little squeeze in an attempt to keep him still. he's so in love with this life.

one cartoon ends and another begins, and the room becomes quiet with the transition, dongmin's full attention fixed on the screen. he doesn't really know this one, either, considering he doesn't get the full-on exposure therapy his ex probably does, she being the one that has dongmin most nights. they watch a little, and sanghyuk realises the longer he sits here with a squirmy little dude in his lap that he kind of has to pee? but he doesn't want to move dongmin any more than he has to, nor does he want to miss a second. sentimental stuff suddenly means a lot to him since the breakup.

plus, the guy playing this character -- an animated elephant with a lot of spirit, not quite a main character but definitely a key part in helping the kids learn to count -- has a really nice voice. oops. he has no regrets.

"what's this show called, dongminnie?" sanghyuk asks his son, smushing his little tummy playfully.

"it's caaaaalled," and dongmin turns to look up at sanghyuk; it strikes sanghyuk right then that his son is the spitting image of his mother, sanghyuk's ex, and in a split second the cartoon and his question is gone. "it's called...um...UMMMMMMM..."

"s'okay, dongminnie, we'll find out together," and sanghyuk is already blindly feeling around in the couch cushions for the remote, vaguely aware that he heard it clunk at some point earlier and wondering if it's stuck inside.

the cartoon elephant has taken the television screen, and _god_ , he didn't know cartoon voice actors were anything but goofy caricatures of real life. (at least in this case. anime doesn't count.) this is like... almost distracting to the cartoon-watching process. he's so focused on the voice that eventually he's just waiting for a flash of bright-yellow elephant on screen so he knows what to look forward to.

eventually, with his face pressed to the couch cushions and dongmin sitting triumphantly on his hip, sanghyuk locates the television remote, and holds it up over his head like a war trophy. dongmin giggles again, tries to steal the remote, but sanghyuk waves it away; the damn thing almost goes flying right out of his hand, but he holds on as it threatens to backflip out of his grip. he scans the guide real quick; apparently this show is called bobby's world. that's going into a google search faster than sanghyuk solved the mystery of who stole all the apples from bobby's uncle's farm. (it was the bugs. it's always the bugs.)

except dongmin is crawling all over him, an ant to sugar, and sanghyuk attacks him with tickles in an attempt to save himself. this is fine. he's fine. life is good. he definitely doesn't forget about bobby's world, though, mentally bookmarking it for another time.

\---

when he doesn't have the morning shift, nor his child, sanghyuk occasionally makes time for friends. it's a tuesday morning. his best friend, rolling partner, and all-around pain in his ass, lee hongbin, is sitting at his creaky kitchen table, giving about a quarter of his full attention to breaking up some dirt weed and the rest to some game on his phone. this is usually how their hangouts go. this is fine.

"so you fell in love with a voice on the television," hongbin begins in what can only be described as a conversational but judgmental tone.

"i did not," sanghyuk insists, trying to grab hongbin's phone out from under his hand, only to be met with a swift slap on the inside of his wrist that leaves him hissing between clenched teeth. he can't believe hongbin has been working out without him. the betrayal. "it's a voice in a cartoon. when you say it like that, it seems like i've got that thing where i wanna get married to the eiffel tower."

"i never said you did or didn't," says hongbin, smug as fuck as he kills off an enemy. "i'm just saying, that's how they get you. next thing you know, the government is gonna jack into your brain and steal every positive you thought to fuel their jetplanes."

"you know, sometimes you say these things with your mouth that make me think you keep a tinfoil hat collection in your attic." sanghyuk pointedly tips the head of his beer in hongbin’s direction, an accusation but without the ghost of pitchforks or lack of friendship.

"hey, no, that's wonsik," hongbin protests as he dies in-game and closes his screen. he takes the pile of weed between his fingers, picks out a couple seeds -- how he got so proficient in this without even looking or the use of both his hands, sanghyuk only has a vague idea -- and packs the bowl. as any good bro would, he offers sanghyuk the first hit, then visibly remembers that, oh yeah, sanghyuk is doing that whole responsible adult thing these days. "you still don't have that promotion?"

"i mean, yeah, but no." sanghyuk fidgets, rolling the beer bottle between his hands, watching on with envious eyes as hongbin takes a hit, cheeks puffing up with smoke. "the paperwork hasn't been sent in but i'm definitely doing the work that i would be doing once i became the manager. all of it. i keep ending up late to pick up dongmin on friday nights. chorong's pissed. she says if i'm not gonna be responsible and at least let her know..." he realises he's been talking way too long, and that hongbin should probably, like, breathe. maybe. "let it out, man. this isn't high school."

in one big exhale, hongbin starts coughing like a freight train exhaust. he sets down the pipe so as to cover his face with both his hands -- there was this one time they'd been at a party and hongbin had taken a hit so big that he coughed immediately and accidentally spit in the face of the girl he was initially trying to impress; sanghyuk had never let him live it down. it changed hongbin as a person, apparently. "you good?" sanghyuk asks in that exact same judgmental voice hongbin had given him a few moments prior.

"m'fine," hongbin announces when he's finally got his breath back. sanghyuk snickers, but hongbin continues on, poking at the ash in the pipe with his pinky finger before readying himself for another hit. "anyway, what's up with the voice on tv? do you ask it to do things with you?"

"the fuck does that even mean?" sanghyuk wrinkles his nose in distaste.

"are you having full on conversations with it?"

"it's a cartoon. i'm not delusional."

hongbin snorts. "i wouldn't know, this is the first time i've seen you in about...two weeks?"

sanghyuk actually kind of feels guilty about that one, chin dropping, colour rising in his cheeks. "yeah, i know. it's just, like, between work and dongmin and dealing with dongmin's mom and studying for this placement test for school..."

"hey, i know," and hongbin's suddenly soft, lowering the pipe from his mouth without taking a hit so he can focus his full attention on his friend. "i know you're really busy. we all knew this was what it'd be like when you and her decided to split time between you and dongmin. it's fine."

sanghyuk lifts a shoulder in a half-hearted gesture of indifference. "it's not fine. i feel like i haven't seen you guys in about a year."

"is that why you're seeking companionship in a voice on television?"

sanghyuk pops the top on his beer only to chuck the cap in hongbin's face. "no, it was a nice voice," he insists doggedly, groaning in frustration. "here, look, i'll show you--" and he's already got his phone out, youtube open, his most recent search still right there. _bobby's world elephant_. he scrolls through the videos, eventually settling on the right one -- someone, some hardcore fangirl or fanboy or fansomeone, had actually gotten hold of the elephant's audition reels and uploaded them. a saint, that fansomeone. he plays the video for hongbin, shoving the phone in his friend's face. "listen."

hongbin does listen, and judging by the tilt of his eyebrows, the slight flash of dimple even though he doesn't really smile all that big, he is also impressed. "he sounds...really familiar," and there's a question in hongbin's tone, a furrow in his face that cannot be rectified until he knows the answer. "i'll figure it out. did you check his IMDB page?"

"cartoon voice actors have IMDB pages?" sanghyuk's surprise surprises even him.

"yes, you neanderthal," and hongbin is snatching his phone, probably to open the browser.

"oh, wait, no--"

"dude, were you watching porn again? this isn't high school, what if dongmin got into your phone--"

the last open tab is actually a lot more embarrassing than any porn sanghyuk had ever been shown by hongbin. it's a post on facebook for some convention in town, a gathering of cartoon actors and animators. the ad is covered in what basically look like furries -- giant animal mascot costumes possessed by meaty bodies, dancing around for the benefit of children and local fetishists alike. sanghyuk's ex had mentioned that it was something dongmin had wanted to go to, and sanghyuk would rather die than let his own son go without something he wanted. (maybe...that would be a problem, someday.)

"are you a furry now?" hongbin asks, slow and careful, his task apparently forgotten.

"you're not gonna believe me even if i say you're not," sanghyuk points out with a frown. "it's for the kiddo."

"is your kiddo a furry now?"

sanghyuk launches himself across the table, knocking over both their beers in the process. thank god hongbin's still has its cap, but sanghyuk's is no more, fizzing out onto the floor as sanghyuk wrestles hongbin to the ground.

\---

chorong isn't happy when sanghyuk goes to pick up dongmin a full hour late on friday night. he's got all the usual excuses saved up, of course, that work hadn't slowed down until right at closing and that he was the unofficial manager on duty for the evening and that he would have been here sooner if he could, he swears. but she's having none of it. she gives him a full amount of sass when he lets himself into her apartment, arms folded, irritation plain on her face, just like the exhaustion she always wears these days. it reminds sanghyuk of himself, and a time when she looked her age instead of dramatically older than she actually is.

she must have done some decorating in the past week -- that cushy government internship job is giving her plenty of time and money to work with, not to mention the child support he's paying her to the best of his own ability -- because the apartment actually looks nice, clean, not the crummy rental she'd complained about when they first got it together a couple years back. there's photos on the walls -- of her family, of she and her closest girlfriends, of dongmin. there's even one of the three of them hanging over the couch, a pretty big print in a gilded frame.

sanghyuk really, really tries not to lose it at that. they made such a good-looking family. the moment passes, though, and he's fine.

dongmin hops out of his blanket nest on the couch and waddles to sanghyuk sleepily, wearing his pyjamas and a blanket wrapped around his arm. he looks like his parents, tired with no real explanation as to why. his eyes shine like his mother's used to. sanghyuk's heart hurts a little as he scoops up his son, gives him a big hug. "c'mon, we're going to my house and we're going to sleep."

dongmin nods, mumbles something about missing sanghyuk this week as he dots a kiss on his father's cheek.

"i had a date," is the first thing she says to him after a long stretch of silence, and sanghyuk's entire world gets knocked on its axis. "like, i had to cancel a whole date just so you could... what, dick around with hongbin?"

"i was at _work_ ," sanghyuk insists, still reeling from the revelation. there went the hope he'd been holding onto since their breakup eight months ago. "to take care of our _child_."

she's quiet again, but it's a different quiet this time, inexplicable and tender. "sorry. i just...really needed that whole contact with another adult thing for awhile." she tries to smile, but it comes off kind of broken, and sanghyuk sighs.

"it's fine, noona," he finally tells her, crossing the room awkwardly, dongmin's weight throwing him off a little bit. his hand rests on her face for a long moment, the way he used to touch when she was upset about something that had pissed her off at work. he thumbs at the hollow beneath her eye and if she cries a little, it's not something either of them mention. "you're fine. i know you're stressed out."

she bats his hand away, covers her own face with her fingers, tries to wipe away her own tears and ends up looking...well, childish. ironic. hilarious. "maybe we should just go out instead."

"you don't mean that." his heart both flutters and breaks, simultaneous and horrifyingly ugly. "we broke up for a reason. and i miss you, and it would be easier if we _were_ still together, but...you weren't happy. i don't want to see you waste away again." he smiles down at her, stoops, dusts a kiss over her forehead, a surprisingly tender gesture.

she laughs, and it's cracked, but it's there, a little twinkle of the girl he'd fallen for when he was still in high school. "you're getting so tall," she points out.

"yeah? i was wondering if you'd shrunk or something." he shuffles from foot to foot, stilling when he feels dongmin's head droop onto his shoulder. "i'm gonna, um, take him home."

"yeah."

"he needs sleep. i'm sorry to keep you waiting, chorong." he pauses awkwardly at the point in his stream of consciousness in which he'd usually tell her he loves her. "i'll see you on sunday, okay?"

"yeah." she sniffles a little. he wants so badly to kiss her until she feels better, but instead he leaves the apartment, closing the door quietly behind himself.

dongmin stirs, but only a little, on the elevator ride down to the parking garage. he asks sanghyuk, "daddy, are we going home?"

"yeah, kiddo," sanghyuk murmurs into his ear as the elevator doors slide open, only getting a little stuck on their way. "we're gonna go put you to bed. and tomorrow i have the day off, so you'll be coming with me to the park. and i have a surprise for you."

"a suh-pise?" dongmin stumbles over the word a little.

"mhm. a surprise. you're gonna like it, i just know it." he gives dongmin a big smooch right in the middle of his face, the tip of his nose, and dongmin's whole demeanour changes. he's awake. shit. mistakes.

"dad, when we get home, can we play a game?"

sanghyuk sighs and nods, wriggling their way into the car despite the tight parking job he'd done on his way in. "yeah. are you hungry? did mom give you dinner?" he sets dongmin down into his carseat, straps him in with a practised swiftness, gives his son's stomach a little tickle and receives a happy squirm in return.

"yeah! we had mac n cheese!"

"okay, cool, then we can go right to playing as soon as we get home, okay?" he's already in his seat by the time he's answering. "hey, dongminnie? i love you." he starts the car and the television screen in the back of the passenger's seat kicks on. bobby's world on dvd starts playing loud and clear through the car's speakers.

dongmin shrieks in complete glee. "i love you too, daddy," he says, and quietly fixes his attention on the screen.

if he drifts off a little when he hears that voice, it isn't sanghyuk's fault. he doesn't _mean_ to be in love with a voice, he just kind of _is_. maybe the universe doesn't put anything in anyone's lives, but he'd like to think that dongmin had been even more of a blessing than he could have imagined even after his arrival into the world.

weird. hongbin would tell him this is weird. maybe it is a little weird. but it definitely makes the car ride a lot more bearable than the times in which dongmin had requested they listen to 'old mcdonald' seventeen times in a row between his mother's house and sanghyuk's own.

he looks into the rearview mirror, sees dongmin's head as it droops onto the side panel of his car seat as he drifts off to sleep, and smiles.

\---

okay, so maybe, just _maybe_ , sanghyuk has bitten off a little more than he can chew.

dongmin hasn't stopped crying for the last fifteen minutes. sanghyuk knows _why_ his son is crying; they haven't had time to stop and get something to eat. there has to be something in this fuckass auditorium, full to the brim of what hongbin had correctly guessed were essentially furries and screaming, spoiled children, to _eat_.

sanghyuk is a little stressed, he realises as he lets dongmin tear into the neckline of his shirt, pulling at it until it's probably shapeless. two kids, a boy and a girl, play tag so close to him that he can feel their passage on the backs of his knees. dongmin clutches him tighter, fitting arms around his dad's neck until he swears he's about to choke.

thank god he's so tall, else he would probably never catch sight of the blessed concession stand... all the way on the other side of a sea of people, some of whom are dressed in enormous, colourful mascot costumes, some of whom are children who seem intent on quite literally tackling those in enormous, colourful mascot costumes, and some of whom look just as tired, as dead inside as sanghyuk feels. he gives knowing nods in passing to his fellow parents, who, as per usual, give him that look of questioning: _aren't you too young to have a kid that old?_

he ignores them. he's gotten pretty good at it over the years.

in hindsight he wishes he'd asked someone to come with him. anyone. hongbin would have at least cracked jokes. wonsik... well, wonsik might have gotten scared of all the heads on the cartoon characters, but he loves dongmin enough that he might have come along too. sanghyuk just doesn't like feeling so alone in all this, so adrift in an ocean of noise and chaos and _oh my god did that child just vomit in the mascot's hands?_

eventually, though, he and dongmin, still crying, fight their way to the concession, get the kiddo what is essentially a lunchable at five times the grocery store price. sanghyuk sighs and forks over his card. he does not make enough to be surprising his son like this. once he's fed, though, he seems to be in a much better mood, and even asks to run around with the kids until the main event happens.

oh, right, the main event is a bunch of characters from bobby's world taking kids hostage. sanghyuk definitely doesn't have ulterior motives here. he's just trying to figure out who the voice is. he'd tried looking it up online, but apparently the character is new? just started a few episodes ago. no one really knows. a mystery. sanghyuk doesn't really like mysteries, but he'll solve this one.

in the meantime, there's all these events, both inside and outside. dongmin's a little bit sunburned, a result of them spending way too much time at the park and sanghyuk forgetting the sunscreen (he can already hear chorong in his head, whining at him about being responsible), so he opts to keep them inside, shuffling between arts and crafts stations here and there.

they make sand art in neon colours at a booth for a show about desert adventures. they do little handprints in pink clay, dongmin's pressed inside sanghyuk's, the same shape but a third the size. at a booth representing a cartoon about dinosaurs, they pretend to dig up tiny fossils out of cups filled with dried goop. at one about piñatas, they actually stuff piñatas with stickers and tiny candies; the girls running the station say to come back after the party and they'll get to beat the piñatas with sticks and get the prizes they stow away.

sanghyuk doesn't remember most of these cartoons, nor will he recognise them in the future, but what he will remember is the excitement in his son's eyes. that...kind of makes all the discomfort, all the nearly getting run into and the smell of mascot costume sweat that permeates the air, completely worth it.

in the middle of being begged to go outside where the inflatable games are, sanghyuk notices an ant trail of people leading into the main ballroom where, supposedly, the cartoon parties are being held. he didn't really figure until now that bobby's world was that popular, but apparently it is, judging by the parents trying to fight and get their kid into the room. he picks up dongmin, sets his kid on his shoulders. "c'mon, we're gonna go see a man about an elephant."

"what's that mean, dad?" dongmin quickly occupies himself by wiping the sticky remnants of fossil goop onto sanghyuk's cheeks.

"nothing, kiddo, let's just get a move-on." they make their way into that same ballroom, gently elbowing past people who're just loitering around in an attempt to block up the line. they find the end together, dongmin none too subtly pointing out where the gathering ends and the unorganised mass of bodies begins, and sanghyuk bops along in that direction, fully aware that he looks like the coolest older brother of all time instead of the coolest dad. dongmin, from his perch on sanghyuk's shoulders, sticks his arms out and plays world's slowest airplane.

they eventually get in, though not without their own share of troubles (some disgruntled uncle of some sort? grandpa maybe? had tried to cut directly in front of them, and sanghyuk had to do his best to set a good example for dongmin and not fight the guy; three kids with giant balloons, presumably from one of the outside booths, kept knocking sanghyuk in the face with their prizes; two moms about ten people ahead of them had a full-on domestic and sanghyuk swears, when one of them passes back toward the end of the line instead of the head of it, that he can smell the freshness of that breakup right there). filing into the room is another task in and of itself, but ultimately they find decent seats, dongmin still with his knees around sanghyuk's neck.

the lights drop. there's a stage at the front of the room, curtains drawn closed. a spotlight flickers to life in their center. the curtains part for a moment and a purple hand, freckled with a darker shade of indigo, pokes out. that's bobby, sanghyuk remembers when dongmin absolutely loses his mind at the sight. then the music starts, this boppy, jangly, cartoonish mess that sanghyuk has to admit is pretty dang catchy. characters of all shapes and sizes start pouring out. sanghyuk, for a moment, thinks that maybe this is what hell is like, just a bunch of giant furry costumes accosting children who actually enjoy and, in some demented part of their brain, crave the validation of their attention.

except then sanghyuk remembers the last anime convention he went to, and following around cosplayers to get pictures for hours at a time, and shuts off the judgmental part of his brain to the best of his ability.

the show is actually kind of a good time, dancing mascots scooping up kids and, evidently, giving relief to the parents who've not spent this much time with their own children in years. he can't relate, but a big purple chicken nugget approaches dongmin. the child gives sanghyuk a questioning glance, and sanghyuk nods his approval, and just like that his own kid is a part of the show.

sanghyuk whips out his phone and takes video. to show chorong later, he swears to himself. definitely not to make weird edits that imply his son has joined some kind of cartoon cult on instagram later.

eventually, though, it comes to an end, and dongmin is returned to him, sweaty and exhilarated, clinging to his father as if he'd been momentarily afraid he'd be whisked away to war, never to see his family again. it's all very dramatic. sanghyuk laughs and cradles dongmin to his chest, kissing his forehead and shushing the nerves that vibrate throughout him.

the climax of this entire scene is that the mascots disappear and the voice actors come out to some kind of panel. it is here at this juncture that sanghyuk realises how many grown people are here, without kids as a shield to guard them from any critique on their own personal weirdness. apparently bobby's world has some kind of following? he wonders if there's a support group for adult fans or something. hongbin would know. hongbin's a fucking genius.

he's scanning the faces of the actors that take the panel and somehow, he just kind of knows, before it's announced who everyone is. there's this enormous linguine of a man, dark hair, a kind of long chain dangling from one ear. he's not...super attractive upon first glance? he has this pinch to his mouth, like he doesn't really wanna be there. but then one of his young fans yells out something indiscernible from the general din of the crowd, and his face lights up, his smile bright enough to power entire animation studios on its own, and sanghyuk kind of melts. at least the voice matches the face.

the fuck is he talking about? his kid is right there. he is not about to fall in love with some guy with his kid right there.

the people who were just there because their children needed a little more of their energy sapped for the ride home immediately ducked out, leaving mostly hardcore adult animation fans ( _is that an appropriate term for them?_ sanghyuk wonders, _that sounds like they just like watching those fake shocking pornhub clips of marge simpson getting railed by mr. burns_ ), with a few of the more dedicated moms and dads and their kids.

dongmin looks up at sanghyuk, forehead still beaded with sweat, hair plastered to his face. "do you wanna go with me to meet them?"

"you already know they're not just cartoons?" his son's intelligence never fails to leave sanghyuk in amazement. this whole tiny human knowing things it took sanghyuk way longer to figure out knocks him out every time.

"yeah. mom told me." dongmin rolls his eyes, silently asking whether or not this was obvious, if the look on his face is any indication.

scratch that.

in any case, he might be a little grateful that dongmin is the one to present the idea, because sanghyuk would most assuredly feel like a fool going up to meet some dude by himself. they toddle their way up to the long table, everyone else streaming on in alongside them. dongmin is very clearly tired, sort of trudging beside sanghyuk, a fist tangled in the hem of sanghyuk's basketball shorts. it's cute. hopefully it's endearing to more than just him.

there's a couple really adorable actresses before they get to the guy of sanghyuk's dreams, and they very obviously have no qualms flirting with sanghyuk to the best of his ability. one of them even grants dongmin's request for a selfie -- where did he learn _that_ , sanghyuk wonders with a roll of his eyes -- and let him sit on the table beside her, flashing a peace sign in a really cute photo that sanghyuk only kind of regrets taking. that'll be going on instagram later, too. just...at a much earlier date than those cartoon cult videos.

it's only really when they're closing the gap between the pair of themselves and the guy -- sanghyuk squints, trying his best to read the nametag stuck to his chest; _jung taekwoon_ is definitely not the name he would've given to a real-life cartoon elephant, but that's why he's not in charge of anything to do with kid's shows -- that sanghyuk realises he has _zero_ idea what he's actually going to say. that, coupled with the almost sour look on jung taekwoon's face, sets anxiety afire in sanghyuk's belly.

dongmin tugs on his dad's shorts. "c'mon, we gotta move," he urges, halfheartedly bouncing on the balls of his feet. sanghyuk takes a couple steps and stops in front of taekwoon, inner corner of his lip worried between his teeth.

"hi there," he starts, lamely, and taekwoon looks up at him, neck craned a bit, all that ugliness from a minute before totally vanished.

"you're a fan?" taekwoon asks quietly, corners of his mouth curling up in a way that sanghyuk deems completely unnecessary. his voice is so different than the one he uses on the show. not that sanghyuk is, like, starstruck over it or anything, because that would be Dumb, it's just... a weird contrast.

"i-- yes, kind of? a fan of you. but my son..." he looks down at dongmin, who is busy staring off into space as if he couldn't possibly care less about where they are right now. thanks, kid, you're a great help. "we watch your show every time we have weeks together. it's his favourite, i think."

dongmin suddenly snaps to attention, looking from taekwoon to sanghyuk, trying to figure out the situation. "no, dad, my favourite is pop town," he says with a sigh that is way, way older than dongmin himself. he gives his father a look that, in the most pure possible way, insists that sanghyuk will never know him the way he deserves to be known.

"your son?" taekwoon blinks, leans back in his chair a little. sanghyuk acts, to the best of his ability, like he doesn't see how incredibly fucking long taekwoon's legs are in spite of the plastic folding table between them. "i thought he was your--"

sanghyuk stoops, then, covering dongmin's ears like he's about to swear or something, and fixing taekwoon with a sort of irritated glare. "i get that a lot. this is my kid. his name's dongmin. he's four and a half."

"and that makes you...?" taekwoon cocks his head a little, another flash of teeth accompanying. sanghyuk wants to die.

"old enough to have a four-and-a-half-year-old," he announces matter-of-factly, dropping his hands from his son’s ears and patting him on the shoulder, giving him a winning smile that dongmin promptly returns, bouncing again. "can we have an autograph?"

"yeah, sure," taekwoon murmurs, still grinning like a loon, and for about a half second sanghyuk kind of hates him? he doesn't know what he expected, but 'smarmy bastard' was definitely not on the list. there are these little art books littering the tables; taekwoon snatches one up and scribbles on it furiously. "what's your name?" he asks dongmin, leaning over the table a little, and that smile shifts, becomes this curiously cute thing, not unlike the one he'd shown the audience when he'd first come into the ballroom.

"dongminnie," says the boy, and sanghyuk can't help but coo at how absolutely adorable it is, not to mention the way that taekwoon visibly melts at the sound of dongmin's precious voice. taekwoon continues writing, the sharpie squeaking across the glossy surface of the print. he flips it over, writes a little more, then hands the whole thing to sanghyuk with a glance that sanghyuk himself can't quite interpret. "thank you for coming!" says taekwoon, lowering his head a little and -- is he _blushing_? why would he be blushing? sanghyuk doesn't get it.

except then they're going down the line some more, sanghyuk pausing when dongmin asks for autographs, for selfies and the like, taekwoon and how absolutely weird he'd been a vague memory on the fringes of his mind. out of a distinct lack of attention span, sanghyuk occupies himself by flipping through the booklet. there on the back page is, unmistakably, a phone number.

 _i don't mind if you're a fan of me,_ reads a haphazard message over the top of said phone number.

sanghyuk nearly drops the booklet as if it's suddenly caught fire, clutches it to his chest instead, his heart beating so fast that for a moment he's afraid it might stop. he doesn't think he's old enough to passably have a heart attack in front of his son; he's saving that for twenty years down the line.

he lifts his eyes, seeking out taekwoon in the crowd, only to find that taekwoon is very pointedly not making eye contact, twiddling his thumbs until someone decides to pay him attention. that's right, he's kind of new on the show; not a lot of people would know who he is. for a second, sanghyuk almost kind of feels bad for him.

and then, paging through the leaflet a second time just out of sheer disbelief, he catches the drawing taekwoon had done just beside his warm message to dongmin.

_is that a fucking chicken with four legs?_


	2. just ask the elephant you're trying to bang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a hotel room and a half-assed attempt at a booty call are some kind of sunday night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pardon our mess, we're setting up a ton of shit for later  
> (we're also installing a starbucks)

the night after the convention, when sanghyuk has dropped off his son at chorong's place for the week, he finally plucks up the courage to text the number given him. he doesn't really know what to say, and definitely doesn't want to ask for any kind of advice -- he can already hear hongbin's laughter, that evil fucking cackle that only he has, when he so much as imagines it.

it doesn't matter, though, because when he gets back to his apartment building he is not allowed entrance, the front door to the building being barred off by a city worker of some kind. "what's going on?" he asks in that weary tone of his, the one that sounds kind of like himself, but not really, a hollowed-out shell of a single dad with no time for himself.

"pipe burst under the building. the entire first floor is flooded." the city worker, in a highlighter yellow vest that pings brightly whenever one of the flashing lights of his work truck illuminate, gives a hearty sniff, rubs his nose with the back of his hand. "do you live on the first floor? you might have to go talk to someone in the office downtown, get some of your stuff taken care of."

"i live on the third floor," sanghyuk says, flat, scratching at the nape of his neck. he really, really wants to be in bed right now. the bag of dongmin's things that chorong had asked him to bring back to his own place weighs heavy on his shoulder, and he starts to tip, unwilling to make that much effort right about now.

"you can't go in." the guy hacks wetly, and sanghyuk, out of pure dad instinct, takes a big step back, in case this man decides to take a quick, violent trip to loogieville. "do you need the address of somewhere to stay for the night?"

defeated, sanghyuk hitches the bag higher up onto his shoulder. "no, i'm good." he makes a slow retreat back to his car as the city workers wander out in vests not unlike their friend's, with matching black waders. they kick what looks like several thousand rolls of toilet paper out of a couple inches of water as it pours out of the automatic doors. like the shining, but less bloody and therefore less entertaining.

weaklings, sanghyuk thinks bitterly, climbing into his driver's seat and starting the car again. he knows where the closest hotel is; this isn't the first time the building has had an emergency that barred him from entering his own place. there was the time with the wildfires in the surrounding forest, and the time with the potato fly infestation, and the time with the open window diddler of 2017...

he really needs to find a better place to live. post-promotion, maybe.

once he's checked into the hotel, sanghyuk makes himself several promises. he won't order room service. he won't order pay-per-view porno. he will go back to his own place first thing in the morning. he won't make a booty call to a certain voice actor who's way too good-looking for sanghyuk and probably doesn't even remember his face, let alone... fuck, did sanghyuk even tell him his name? stupid. can he even fucking get a booty call?

he recalls the way taekwoon had looked him up and down, if quickly, and the stretch of those long, long, _long_ legs under the table. sanghyuk's no fool. he knows he's a good-looking guy. he could probably get it with almost minimal effort.

the first thing he does once he's keyed into the room is take a shower, wash away the literal dirt he hadn't noticed hiding in the cracks of his skin. the second thing he does is jack it, head tipped back against the shower wall, lips parted, catching the tail end of the hot spray even with clenched teeth. the third thing he does is walk around naked in his own space because he can.

finally tired to the bone, sanghyuk, flops down in a cleaner bed than his own at home, face buried in the pillows, stretched out as he can be though his legs still dangle over the edge. the damn thing's too old. why's he so unnerved, he wonders, by a guy who thinks chickens have more than two legs?

okay, maybe he knows why. maybe he can still see that intensity in taekwoon's eyes when he closes his own. maybe he's been wanting to get off to imagining that beautiful, butterfly-wing voice since he heard it the first time. maybe he's already done that, however unintentionally, and is afraid that nothing will live up to the fantasy? or maybe he's been dozing off to too many of those self-help programs that come on after a day's worth of cartoons. a dozen more options run rampant through his brain, thought-children that he didn't try at making and definitely doesn't know how to control.

when he opens his eyes again he sees little cartoon stars. life is like that, these days.

fuck it, he decides, rolling over with a groan of deep and concerted effort and reaching blindly onto the nightstand for his phone and the cartoon booklet tucked beneath it. his spine pops in three different places when he lays down on his back.

quickly keying the number into his phone, sanghyuk hesitates to actually compose a message. since when is he this unconfident?

finally, he dashes off a message. _hey, i'm sanghyuk, you gave me your number on a flyer the other day? i'm a fan of yours?_ he winces when he hits send.

thirty minutes pass. then another thirty. sanghyuk is exhausted, but he can't sleep, knowing full well that as soon as he closes his eyes it's all over, and that when it's all over is when he'll finally get a text back. he can't fight much longer; his eyes are sandbags, but drier, and his nose is starting to get stuffy and his stomach is starting to hurt and he won't make it much longer and--

 _pop!_ goes the phone weasel. he sits straight up in bed, phone in both hands, unaware what tiredness is for some strange reason. he's never been more awake.

_hey, sanghyuk, why are you up so late?_

his promises echo in some distant part of his mind. he _will not_ make a booty call to some really, really attractive dude who apparently remembers who he is better than sanghyuk had anticipated.

except he's in a hotel. he doesn't even have to wash the sheets himself. and chorong is trying to move on, so why shouldn't he?

he bites down on the tip of his tongue and starts typing, thumbs flying furiously, all caution thrown to the wind.

\---

not even an hour later, jung taekwoon is stepping over the threshold of sanghyuk's hotel room. he looks...different. smaller, somehow? as if he's never been in a hotel room in his life? he has one hand at his elbow, pinching at the skin there, and sanghyuk wants to...do...something, to somehow make this easier for him. he had no idea that this could be so...awkward? not that this was the intention, of course; they got along fine via text, but this is a dramatically different person that sanghyuk is, apparently, meeting for the very first time.

taekwoon doesn't know what to do with his hands at first, and sanghyuk watches with great amusement as he shoves them into his hair, into his front pockets, into his back pockets. he also doesn't really know where to sit, at first taking the overstuffed armchair, then the edge of the bed, then the middle of the bed, all spread out like a land-lain starfish but with limbs too long for its body. he dangles over the edges too. sanghyuk tries his best not to laugh, no matter how endearing it is.

he sits in the gap between taekwoon's thighs, draws up his own long legs, tucks them in full pretzel formation. "are you okay...?" he asks, chin resting on his palm and fingers drumming repetitive patterns on his cheek.

taekwoon lifts his head, blows the curls from his eyes. for a second, sanghyuk thinks he's never seen someone so beautiful, but then one of those strands of hair gets caught in taekwoon's mouth and he sighs, despondent. "i'm fine," he mumbles. "i just don't do very well with, uh...whole adult people?"

"you did fine with me the other day," sanghyuk points out, inching closer, the plastic underneath the sheets of the hotel bed crinkling at the movement. "what's different?" except as soon as he asks it's striking what the difference is.

taekwoon looks at the wall, a little sheepish. "i don't have to impress kids, usually."

"is that the whole basis of your social life? doing events like that and hanging out with children?" when he says it out loud, sanghyuk is aware that the thought makes taekwoon seem a little creepy. he's clearly not, judging by all the uncomfortable shifting going on around sanghyuk. he's just a guy. he's not terrifying.

"I don't meet with a lot of adults outside of work," taekwoon explains, drawing up in a similar fashion, but with his knees tucked beneath his chin. "and the ones that i do meet with...are generally not the kind i like." he pauses, sucks in a breath. "did you invite me over because you wanted to...something?"

"to something." sanghyuk flashes a smirk, tugs at a thread coming out of the ugly tan comforter on the bed, lifts his eyes to meet taekwoon's. "define 'something', and i can give you at least a kind of informed answer."

"i don't know," and taekwoon is absolutely pouting, though there's a practiced patience in his eyes that seems to have nothing to do with sanghyuk and everything to do with the conversation at mouth. "you remember what you were saying, about having a hard time with your ex?"

sanghyuk nods, turning red at the level of personal he'd gotten in such a short span of time. the thread between his fingers breaks; he rakes his palm over the expanse of comforter he can access until he finds another one to snap. if he remembers correctly he'd said something about trying to get over chorong (he hadn't named her, of course, because what kind of shitty ex-boyfriend-slash-sperm-donor would he be if he did?) in any way he could, because he was tired of waiting for her, and tired of waiting for himself to be good enough.

"i kind of...have that problem, too," murmurs taekwoon, and he's looking away again, which is so infuriating that sanghyuk wishes, somehow, that he could change it, if only for a second. but the mere thought, coupled with the lack of intimacy between them, in this situation, anonymous and impersonal as hell, sets sanghyuk's hands to shaking a little bit.

"you wanna talk about it?" he asks, and god, sanghyuk is so fucking _tired_ that he's tempted to curl up around taekwoon, suggest they get some rest.

"no." taekwoon's gaze flickers from the shadow of the lamp on the wall to sanghyuk's face at long last, and his mouth is doing that thing again, the one it had done at the convention that had been a thousand percent unnecessary. he crawls forward on his knees, cradles sanghyuk's jaw in a cupped palm, and tips his head up. "is this alright?" his voice is so soft that sanghyuk shivers a little as he mouths his agreement.

then taekwoon's lips are on his, and he's so gentle, so fucking careful that sanghyuk wants to bounce off the walls just as a counteraction. his lips are smooth. he's got about a day's worth of stubble on his chin; sanghyuk hadn't been able to notice that in the dim hotel lighting, but it sort of halfheartedly scratches at his skin now.

it's a long, lingering gesture, but when it's over, it's over. sanghyuk inhales deeply, catches the scent of taekwoon, vanilla and sandalwood, and he's so tired that he's dizzy. "do you maybe want to stay the night?" his fool mouth betrays him. he quickly recovers, "just to sleep. i didn't, uh, come prepared or anything."

"that's fine. sleep is good. you've had a long night." taekwoon's real smile is something that people try and write poems about only to come up miserably short. sanghyuk is no poet, and his brain is screaming at him about imminent shutdown anyhow. he lays down first, and taekwoon lines up beside him; they wrap arms around one another and sanghyuk presses a quick kiss to taekwoon's cupid's bow.

it isn't two minutes before it's morning again, the sun streaming in from between parted curtains in an ugly 80s geometric print, dust motes caught in the brightness. he wakes up groggy. taekwoon is gone. where has he gone to? sanghyuk climbs out of bed, limbs stiff, legs half-asleep, knees made of pins and needles, and staggers around the room.

there's no sign that taekwoon had been there at all.

sanghyuk checks his phone in case he'd at least been given the common decency of a goodbye message. as he scrolls through feed after feed, he drums his fingers against his lips; every time he touches them he can feel the faint tingle of what taekwoon's mouth had felt like against his own.

there's no communication, either, and maybe this was just one of those _things_ that had to happen in order for sanghyuk to be a human being. an event ordained by the universe, as it is.

he takes another shower. he has another solo session, this time sitting on the sink, back to the mirror, skin absorbing the steam on its surface. he thinks of taekwoon's voice, and of his mouth, and his hands that don't know what they're doing, and his broad shoulders and unmarred skin.

sometime in the afterglow of his orgasm sanghyuk remembers that this man is the literal representation of a cartoon elephant and sighs so deeply that a part of his soul leaves his body. he abandons that part of himself within the confines of the hotel, figuring that it’s probably meant to be there in that room with the memory of taekwoon anyhow.

\---

"so let me get this straight."

hongbin has picked up this habit of chewing wads of gum bigger than his entire mouth in an attempt to quit smoking; the conversation thus far has consisted of him making loud chewing noises, not unlike the cows sanghyuk has seen in nature documentaries about farm life at three in the morning, and hongbin struggling to form words with his swollen tongue. 

he sighs, lays back on hongbin's couch and groans loudly at the spring that pokes directly into one of his kidneys at the movement. he's fully aware that this portion of their interaction is going to be painstakingly slow, both due to the fact that hongbin was apparently raised in a barn, and the fact that hongbin is in the middle of playing...something. sanghyuk doesn't even know this game. when was the last time he _played_ a videogame? he struggles to remember and sips at his beer as hongbin relearns the process of talking by doing.

"you invited elephant guy to a hotel room where you were staying."

"yes." sanghyuk fails to mask the annoyance in his voice, flinches at just how harsh it is.

"you had been talking about getting over chorong. which, by the way, is a great plan. it's been how long?"

"eight months."

"and you've been pining over her every second." sanghyuk might be laying down, thereby skewing his visual perception of the situation, but he doesn't miss the way hongbin's face screws up when he slowly intones the word 'pining'. "so, okay, great idea. proud of you. progress. but then you didn't hook up with him?"

"we kissed one time." sanghyuk sits up, sure that new-new-age renal acupuncture isn't going to solve any of his problems. "and then we went to sleep, and when i woke up it was like he was never there."

"sounds to me like he used you for..." here's the struggle. sanghyuk can _hear_ the giant gum monster living in his best friend's mouth shift from one side to the other, the squelching it makes enough to turn his stomach inside out. "i don't know. something. but you definitely got used."

"he said something about trying to get over someone, too?" sanghyuk suggests in the most dubious tone of voice he can manage -- a feat considering the fact that he's pretty sure the bag that used to be his kidney is currently leaking, along with some of his spinal fluid.

"oh." hongbin pauses his game so he can turn to look at sanghyuk, seriousness in his eyes. "yeah, you definitely got used. but it was a mutual using, you know? so...that's good. have you tried messaging him?"

"once or twice," sanghyuk lies, the twenty-one messages he has sent taekwoon in the past twenty-four hours burning a hole through his phone even through the lining of his pocket.

"and nothing?"

"nothing." sanghyuk sets his face into one of grim acceptance. "maybe it was all just a dream or something. i was pretty tired from having dongminnie and not being able to sleep in my own bed."

with a groan, hongbin stretches his arms over his head, sets his controller down between sanghyuk's knees. "i don't think it was a dream."

"oh, here we go."

"i think you let the lizard people get into your neural mainframe, and they programmed the whole sequence so you would _think_ it was a dream."

"can you stop talking? please?"

"i think taekwoon -- that's his name, right? taekwoon?" hongbin takes sanghyuk's silence as an answer and continues, scooting closer, til he's practically shoving sanghyuk halfway off the couch. "i think taekwoon just got embarrassed being so soft with you so quickly, and he was going to leave anyway."

that...is a pretty decent estimation. in his panic, sanghyuk hadn't managed to guess at any real, actual feelings. or really tried? this is probably a problem of his, indicative of something more long-term, but that also sounds like something for a future version of himself to deal with.

"why are you right?" asks sanghyuk, wonderment and shame mingled in his voice.

"because i'm crazy like a fox," hongbin replies in the utmost seriousness, tapping at his temple.

sanghyuk groans and nudges him in the ribs with the ball of his foot, rolling off the couch. he finishes the last gummy dregs of his beer, mostly backwash, and sets the bottle in the growing pile at hongbin's feet. "i gotta go get ready for work."

"already? you just got here?" hongbin is already back to his game, though, smacking endlessly at his gum.

"yeah, but i have to go in early and make next week's schedule." he pretends to pick at his nose, flicks an imaginary booger in hongbin's direction. "have fun cleaning up the mess, when you finally get to it." a pause. "hey, are you doing anything this weekend?"

"i'm not going to a furry convention." hongbin pretends to wipe said imaginary booger off his face where it would have landed were it real and lick it off his palm, earning a giggle from sanghyuk. "i think i have a paper due, but i can probably put it off until sunday night like usual. why?"

"i gotta figure out what i'm doing for dongmin's birthday, and you're probably the most childish person i know."

"oh, that's easy. just ask your boyfriend."

"he isn't my boyfriend."

"just ask the elephant you're trying to bang."

"he _isn't_ an elephant."

"just ask taekwoon."

"he isn't answering me." sanghyuk is already in the doorway, toeing into his sneakers. "really, though, he asked about you the other day. as much as we don't see each other, we go even longer without you seeing your own godchild."

hongbin hums, picking up the controller again. "fair. saturday afternoon, right?"

"right. i really gotta go."

"so go, you fuckin' nerd." hongbin goes to blow a kiss, something that would certainly draw from him the infamous hongbin cringe, but then his gum falls out of his mouth and onto the floor with a loud _splat_.

sanghyuk's laughter at his friend's mistake can be heard all the way down the hall and out the building door.

\---

sanghyuk wakes up in the middle of talking to a customer, having apparently experienced some kind of out-of-body experience just before. it is a living nightmare -- they're going on and on about how they need just the right balance of soft and softer from a mattress, like that makes any semblance of fucking sense. he thinks for a second he might die. apparently he'd been doing a good job, because they're really enthusiastic about the conversation -- as much as someone can be about having to buy a new mattress, anyway.

it's been a long week. it's only wednesday, but it's been a very, very long week. sanghyuk rakes his hand through his bangs, turns on his charm. he goes in for the hard sell on one of their higher-end models, just for the opportunity to get out of the situation faster, regain his bearings and they're so desperate that they actually go for it. nice. a good commission to make up for the price of taking dongmin to the convention this week.

worth it, he thinks, filling out a receipt and promising his customers -- a middle-aged man with a moustache and his clearly-older-than-him wife -- that their mattress will be delivered the next day.

his coworker and best friend's best friend, wonsik, is staring at him from across the sales floor like sanghyuk just made a miracle happen. when the customers leave he makes his way to sanghyuk, slowly, as he does everything, and with a face vaguely like a kicked puppy. "you okay?" he asks, perhaps a little cautiously. sanghyuk gives him the eye. "sorry, it's just... it looked like you had a moment there toward the end."

"yeah, i kinda did," sanghyuk relents, feeling the muscles in his glare relax considerably. "i just haven't been sleeping a lot the past couple days..."

"makes sense. for a second, though, it looked like maybe you were coming out of some kind of blackout drunk." wonsik puts a hand on sanghyuk's shoulder, gives him a little pat. "at least they were easy."

"easy?" sanghyuk echoes, blinking a couple times and tugging at the sleeve of his red polyblend polo.

"yeah, you don't remember? they came in because their upstairs neighbours had bedbugs and they needed a replacement as soon as possible so they could never take it out of the plastic." wonsik tilts his head in a way he only does when he's thinking about something really hard. "you wanna talk about it?"

"no." actually, sanghyuk does wanna talk about it, but he doesn't think he wants to talk about it with wonsik. nothing against him, of course; he's a great friend, it's just that sanghyuk doesn't really know how to properly phrase 'i've been fucking the voice of a cartoon elephant since the weekend' without potentially getting in trouble for sexual comments made in the work place. he hates that video.

wonsik regards him with a curious look, then glances around the empty store. it's always empty. how they manage to make a decent living is completely beyond the both of them; it's the subject of many a closing shift conversation. he opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again, and finally settles on: "you wanna jump on the display beds?"

sanghyuk, torn, tries to answer. he does. nothing sounds better than potentially destroying store property and forgetting about how utterly worn down he is. but...he's the manager tonight, seeing as there isn't one on duty.

then wonsik hits him with that eyebrow thing, the one that only wonsik can pull off, and sanghyuk nods, however tentatively. "yeah, let's do it."

they each choose a queen -- the kings are too expensive to be replaced by the store and have to come out of an employee's pocket, they've come to find out over years of working here -- on opposite ends of the store and kick off their shoes, climbing onto the pillowtops and stretching out for a minute. wonsik watches sanghyuk, waiting for a signal to go. sanghyuk flashes a double peace sign and immediately starts jumping.

all the tiredness that's seeped into sanghyuk's bones floats away as he seems to, and it doesn't matter that taekwoon hasn't texted him back all day, or that chorong has a real date next week with some girl sanghyuk has never met, or that dongmin's birthday is fast approaching and he has no idea what he's going to do.

all that matters is the bounce.

\---

four hours later, he's slumped over a textbook, the memory of jumping on beds far behind him. he'll have to tell dongmin about that later. (on second thought, he probably won't, in case one of those nights where he has to bring dongmin to work with him ends up going horribly wrong.) he's read the same sentence no less than seventeen times. he meets with his tutor tomorrow, a couple hours before work. he tries reading the sentence an eighteenth time, the disappointment in himself, and the disappointment in his tutor's eyes when they both come to the conclusion that whatever studying sanghyuk has been doing isn't enough, well up in him at the same time.

he's gonna be sick.

fortunately, a distraction comes in the form of a video call. from taekwoon. the petty part of sanghyuk wants to ignore it, but he's not out of that desperate limbo where he wants to get over his ex by getting under someone else quite yet. he accepts the call, but doesn't pick up his phone, completely aware that he looks like shit and the fact that he probably can't look at taekwoon without some very visible pining. the phone camera focuses up at the ceiling.

almost immediately, taekwoon makes a noise of disapproval, the sound cracked by sanghyuk's horrible internet connection. "where are you?" he asks in that feathery voice, and sanghyuk doesn't know what kind of nonsequitur shit taekwoon is going to be getting into tonight, but he thinks that taekwoon could talk about one of hongbin's weird conspiracy theories and make it sound appealing. a truly talented actor.

sanghyuk huffs, bottom lip sticking out, fringe fluttering off his forehead. "i'm at my apartment."

"no, where are _you_?" he has a touch of the brat in him. sanghyuk actually kind of hates it. "on the screen. i can't see you."

"i know. i didn't see you either." sanghyuk knows he's being a brat right back, but after all the waiting, all the bullshit -- it's been three entire days, for god's sake, three whole days of wondering where he went wrong -- he doesn't do much in the way of correcting the behaviour. "you just kind of left me."

"oh! right." taekwoon shifts, the movement actually kind of noisy; when sanghyuk glances at the screen he can see that taekwoon is outside, walking somewhere, a thin stream of people passing him in either direction. sanghyuk is surprised to see that many, honestly, considering how late it is. "i got a call for a...i guess you could call it a temp job?"

"so you couldn't tell me that?"

"it was out of the country," taekwoon says, and he's pouting; sanghyuk can hear it in his voice. "i literally had to fly across the border. no cell service."

"but you're back now?"

"i am." he sniffs, and on anyone else it would actually be kind of offensive, but somehow everything? taekwoon does? is cute? sanghyuk is embarrassed that he, a grown man, thinks that about another grown man who probably would loathe to be called as much. "i wanted to know if i could take you out sometime soon. to make up for the, uh...leaving."

another dramatic shift. if taekwoon keeps slipping in and out of his own element, sanghyuk swears he's going to get whiplash. still, he hasn't been waiting for contact for days on end only to give up right before the finish line. and this -- a date? an actual date! a real life _date_!!! -- is kind of the gatorade they pour on someone when they finally finish a marathon.

he picks up his phone so he can look taekwoon in the face -- or, well, the camera lens -- when he agrees, completely forgetting that he has a huge breakout on his face and he hasn't showered since last night and his hair looks like a science experiment of some kind.

"yes. i would like to go on a date with you, jung taekwoon."

that angelic grin pops right back up on taekwoon's face. "good, because i don't think i could've taken no for an answer. i have to make a proper apology."

in the back of his mind, sanghyuk is already checking how much money he has, to see if he can afford condoms and lube and to pay wonsik to babysit dongmin for a night. (nevermind. scratch that. don't think of both those things at once.) he laughs, all glee and abandon, and leans in to kiss the phone screen.

there's only one thing standing in the way, he realises when he hangs up the phone and closes his book, ready for bed, having absorbed absolutely nothing of his text. he'll have to tell chorong that he's going out. they haven't really talked about dating, about the impact that would have on their son's life; the memory of him springing her own date on him still stings enough that his first instinct is to avoid it.

he texts her anyway. _we have to talk tomorrow. call me on break._ it probably sounds a little foreboding, but he's too tired to actually, like...care.

with the end of his night imminent, sanghyuk takes a shower. he keeps his hands to himself (metaphorically speaking anyhow). he's saving up for a special occasion. except that sounds weird, like somehow his sperm count impacts his date night? he really needs to stop letting his mind wander while he's in the shower.

when he finally goes to bed it's with the light and floaty heart that girls were always talking about in chorong's romance novels that he definitely did not read when they lived together; when he wakes up the next morning he swears his cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

\---

chorong calls sanghyuk on her break from the café where she goes for lunch every day. he's driving to his own workplace, skin itching with poly blend and sweat beading upon him, the price of a car that breaks down all the time and currently doesn't have air conditioning in the middle of springtime. he kind of doesn't want to do this right now, but what choice does he have? curse past sanghyuk. he knew what he was doing. this current sanghyuk has no clue.

he can practically hear the stress in her voice when she greets him; she's perfectly friendly, of course, but that doesn't mean people have to do the same. he pictures it in his mind's eye -- her sitting at one of those grated patio tables, forehead in her hand, rubbing at her temple -- and that's a mistake that nearly gets him run off the road when someone decides to change lanes without signaling. "you okay?" he asks.

"yeah, i'm..." she sighs, and he sees that, too, the way her eyelashes flutter, the way she rolls her eyes in an attempt to recenter, the slight droop of her shoulders when it doesn't work on the first try. "it's just a lot today. there was some kind of function at the high school down the street and this is apparently the only restaurant nearby that doesn't serve alcohol, so naturally i've had five seconds to eat my lunch and i'm sitting outside in no table. my break is over in about seven minutes. kids are...the worst."

"i love the irony of that," he snorts, and hears her giggling on the other end of the line. "hey, uh, i wanted to tell you that i kind of...have a date tomorrow? i already asked wonsik -- " he hasn't, but he will when he gets to the store, "and he said it's cool if he needs to babysit."

"oh...you too?" chorong seems hesitant, but she won't confess it even if he asks. "that's fine. i kind of rescheduled with mine for a little later in case you were late, but..."

"no, i'll be on time. i already talked about it with the manager."

"you mean yourself?" he hears the smile in his voice, nearly misses his turn because of it, he's so goddamn charmed by her.

"not yet. any day now."

she tuts her disapproval and, honestly? it's kind of nice to have her on his side, despite...well, despite everything. "hopefully any day now comes soon. you've been working your ass off for that promotion since..."

"yeah," he agrees, not sure he can handle driving and hearing the words out of her mouth at the same time. "anyway, i just...thought i should let you know. dongminnie will be fine, wonsik loves him to death. plus he just got that new dog of his, and you know how dongminnie loves dogs..."

"he does. i was thinking about getting him a puppy for his birthday."

"oh, noona...i don't know about that. can we talk about it later?" it pains him, the divide between wanting to be the cooler parent and needing to be at least somewhat responsible. the petty part of him screams that maybe he should get dongmin _two_ dogs just to show off, but that's utterly fucking stupid. "it's just, you know, i wouldn't want to leave it with you when i had him for the week, and my apartment's pet deposit is stupid high, and-- "

"no, i'd keep it." he sorely wishes he couldn't see in his head the way she raises her chin an inch or two. "i love dogs."

"you're terrified of them, noona."

she sniffs. "your point being? i was gonna look into getting him something small, since he's so small. no one needs one of those giant wolfy things."

"...not even me?" sanghyuk laughs as he swings into the parking lot of the mattress store. it's empty, save for his car and wonsik's. it's always empty. he's pretty sure he works in a front for some kind of drug ring.

"not even you. i gotta go, my break is over."

"have a good rest of your shift, noona." he hangs up, puts the car in park and steps out, stretches his legs -- he'll have to get something bigger, once he actually has money saved up and can afford a car that isn't threatening to break down once a month.

at least she hadn't criticised him. maybe there's hope for the pair of them to happily coexist instead of him wanting her back all the time. those are the thoughts that occupy his mind as he enters the store. wonsik looks up from the counter when the door signals sanghyuk's entry. "hey, the computers are down."

one victory, another defeat. sanghyuk tries to roll up his sleeves before remembering that he doesn't actually have any. he's only got thirty-two hours left to wait. he can do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to comment (i love comments, they give me the strength to carry on) or, with great kindness, harass me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/takoyaken) ♥


	3. like a fucking scented candle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the date happens. it isn't exactly a dream come true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are sexy bits in this but not super sexy, they're in the last section so if you're not into that feel free to skip ♥

they're sitting at some cantina, across from one another, sanghyuk sipping slowly at a mango margarita and on his third glass of water. he's deeply resisting the urge to look like some kind of lush in front of his date -- taekwoon regards him with a question he's been avoiding asking all night, though it's clear in his eyes. the waiters are circling around them, just them, with sizzling plates of food the likes of which set sanghyuk's mouth to watering. in the corner of the patio, there's a band setting up, a keyboard and bass guitar and three mics and a computer. sanghyuk hasn't had time to go to a concert in forever -- he tells taekwoon as much, with a bit of bitterness to his tone; some of his younger days, the best ones, had been spent in loud concert halls, bars he had no right to enter, listening to hip-hop and pretending he was hard enough to use the word ‘gangster’ with any semblance of seriousness.

it hits him, somewhere between half and a third of his drink left, that he hasn't eaten all day. this sounds like a recipe for disaster.

taekwoon, for his part, is perfectly charming, if a little stilted. sanghyuk, at one point, wants to reach across the table, pull him in by the face for another one of those kisses like they'd had sunday night, if only to truly appreciate the impact it has while he's here, aware, able to fully process it. he still regrets not being able to express that before. _idiot._

"so i never asked what you do for a living," taekwoon says, a kittenish grin curling the corner of his mouth, subtle but effective. "it's only fair, since you definitely know what i do."

sanghyuk swallows thickly. he wants to make a joke. he is probably going to embarrass himself. he's weighing the risk versus reward when it spills out of his mouth. "i'm pretty sure my job is a front for the mob and no one's had the decency to tell me." he doesn't mean it, and is pretty keenly aware that he sounds like his best friend, the fucking conspiracy theorist. "i mean...we only ever have a few customers a week. the store is usually empty. i spend a lot of time jumping on beds? for stress relief?" his words are starting to run together, and taekwoon hasn't said anything.

maybe he's just listening? sanghyuk doesn't know. he finishes the melting mango slosh in the bottom of his glass, then picks the slice of pineapple off the rim, sucking the liquor from that too in the hopes it somehow erases everything that just came out of his mouth.

taekwoon, taking his sweet ass time to determine that sanghyuk's part of this conversation is over, breaks out in this absolutely gorgeous smile, then throws back his head and laughs. sanghyuk must be drunk, he decides, if he's going to let his heart be swayed so hard over something like a laugh. "wait, so what do you think they're covering up?" taekwoon asks, once his little fit is over.

just then, the band in the corner kicks to life, the bassist strumming his strings. the volume of that alone is loud enough to drown out any attempt at conversation.

"we're gonna get started with our set here!" one of the three, presumably the lead singer, announces. the computer between them churns to life, and starts playing the opening to some pop song no one really knows. there's a fucking karaoke act in the restaurant. sanghyuk wants to leave, save himself the torture, but his stomach grumbles in protest.

then the singing starts, and it sounds like two cats screaming at each other, but at a great distance. this is the worst.

taekwoon is laughing again, eyes trained on the musicians as they make their attempts. he orders another drink for each of them when the waiter saunters by. sanghyuk tries to protest, doesn't want to be even deeper in taekwoon's pocket or, worse yet, more drunk than he already is.

"don't worry about it," taekwoon says airily, a wave of his hand, a look of amusement playing at the corner of his eyes. he shifts, and the toe of his shoe finds sanghyuk's ankle, toys with it a little. "i'd rather be able to enjoy music than criticise it."

sanghyuk looks sadly into the empty bottom of his glass and realises, perhaps a little hopeless, that taekwoon is probably right.

"anyway, what _do_ you think they're covering for?" he continues on as if there's been no interruption. "you said you jump on beds a lot so i assume you work at like...a mattress store?" sanghyuk nods his agreement, hooking his ankle around taekwoon's to stop that playing he's doing. "what good is a mattress front, anyway?"

"i dunno," sanghyuk says with a shrug, "what would you expect a nationally-renowned mattress chain to be covering for? because it seems pretty inconspicuous to me."

"don't break out the big words," taekwoon chuckles. their drinks come -- at least the waiters come quickly when they're not being asked for food. or extra napkins. taekwoon nods his thanks and eats his orange slice immediately, speaks around the big bite of citrus. "i just mean that it doesn't make a ton of sense. i guess you're right?"

"of course i'm right," sniffs sanghyuk, lips fitting around his straw. "i work there."

the song ends, another strikes up. taekwoon looks more pained than pleased, now, because the cat noises have become something like spanish guitar mixed with raccoon yowling. "do you think they do murder things and then hide the bodies in the mattresses?"

sanghyuk barks laughter, and just like that, any discomfort has melted from him like the ice in his drink. god, but it's hot on this patio, the air swirling with smoke. he almost wants to lean over to the next table and ask for a cigarette of his own -- drinking gives him that urge -- but resists, in case taekwoon has a problem with smoking. "that seems probable, but i'm not gonna say. there isn't a lot of profit in the murder business." he does his best not to sound sad about that, thinking of all the poor hitmen who probably scrape by to survive, like that's even a logical thing to be upset about.

"i think that you'd know if you sold people dead bodies," taekwoon agrees solemnly. "you'd smell it."

"gross." he slurps down a big chunk of ice, chokes on it at first, then relaxes to let it melt down his throat. god, but does he love liquor. "do you have a lot of experience with dead bodies?"

"in my line of work? no, not at all." he lifts an eyebrow as if to say that should be obvious, but sanghyuk is just a little too pleasantly buzzed to respond to such judgments. "or really in my whole life? i dunno. i've never had anyone die."

"me either, now that i think of it. maybe a grandparent? or a distant...someone? when i was a lot younger?" taekwoon snorts, and sanghyuk takes it to mean what it always means -- _you're already so young now._ "but no, i've never experienced a dead body." they're verging into weird territory. good. that's how sanghyuk likes it. the longer the music plays, though, the more stilted taekwoon's attempts at conversation, and sanghyuk is kind of forced to wonder what, exactly, that means. it's a lot to unpack, and he's not quite in the right headspace to attempt it. "that's a pretty nice thing to have in common."

"it is." taekwoon smiles in that way again and god help him, but sanghyuk flutters like butterfly wings, caught on a light springtime breeze. he feels like a fucking scented candle rather than a person, a collection of flowery nonsequiturs. here, in the light of day, when he's processing things as best he can, he's twice as overwhelmed as he had been in that hotel room that night.

the band strikes up an r.kelly song. taekwoon goes ramrod straight in his seat. "no," he whispers, so quiet that sanghyuk isn't sure whether or not he imagined it. "they can't."

except the opening lines are right there -- r.kelly's body is telling him _yes_ in dramatic fashion -- being whined out like a bad engine, like a kitten in the middle of childbirth, like whatever awful thing sanghyuk can put to the voice of this poor bastard fronting this awful band. he's so concerned for taekwoon he doesn't know what to do for himself.

taekwoon opens his mouth wide and...begins to sing? loud enough to be heard over the music? sanghyuk fixes him with puzzlement at first but taekwoon actually kind of gets into it. it's cute. endearing, even. sanghyuk leans back in his chair, keeping no secret of the fact that he's checking taekwoon out, staring him up and down with his bottom lip caught between his teeth, while the elder does a couple body rolls along with the beat of the music.

the band tries to turn up their music, but taekwoon is more clever than they are, can be louder than they can, and there's a noise ordinance in this neighbourhood -- there's only so high they can go.

the song finishes as suddenly as it had begun, taekwoon crooning out the last few notes as the music fades into nothingness. sanghyuk applauds, a little sloppy, thumb catching on his palm painfully, but cheers taekwoon nonetheless.

"we should get out of here," taekwoon announces, and the red in the apples of his cheeks is a lot more pronounced than it had been a minute ago, as if he's embarrassed of his own talent. sanghyuk wants to kiss the redness from him, only vaguely aware that he'll probably cause more if he does that.

sanghyuk's stomach gurgles angrily at him. "we haven't eaten, though," he whines, flopping over onto his elbows only to bang them hard against the surface of the table. "i'm starving."

taekwoon seems to consider this for a long moment as he finishes his margarita. "let me pay for the drinks and we can go somewhere nearby. with less noise?" his eyebrow quirks again, that same self-assured smile pulling at the corners of his lips, and sanghyuk is so goddamn captivated he can't think of saying no.

"can we walk?" is all he asks, thinking of safety. always a dad first, he thinks with a flush of his own.

\---

as it turns out, the place nearby is a ramen shop, and their atmosphere is dramatically different -- there's ambient music, probably lo-fi indie, tinkling through the speakers, and sanghyuk is grateful for the contrast no matter what he actually says or does. sanghyuk half-stumbles his way in the front door, on taekwoon's arm, a hilarious contrast considering how huge, how swollen with alcohol he is right now in this moment. in fact, the alcohol humming in his every cell makes him realise how big, how potentially clumsy he is. or maybe that's just the fact that he knocks into the little booth at the front where the hostess with the mostest stands.

"hi, two please?" she had been in the middle of shooting sanghyuk a dirty look but when she lifts her head, spots taekwoon, she lights up like a christmas tree. "hi, eunji-ya."

the hostess -- eunji -- nods her head enthusiastically, the picture of an angel. sanghyuk is almost knocked off his feet again just by the change. the duality of (wo)man, he supposes, trotting along behind eunji, in perfect step with taekwoon without even meaning to be.

they take their seats in a booth, and somewhere in some distant, desert part of his brain, sanghyuk is offended that the table is so big, creates so much distance between himself and taekwoon. but then they're locking ankles under the table again, and every high-tension nerve in sanghyuk's giant frame is set at ease. "did you know that was going to happen?" he asks taekwoon, mouth puckered curiously. "at the other place, i mean."

"not exactly?" taekwoon looks off, clearly a bit embarrassed at his own lack of knowledge. "they usually have live music on the weekends, but it's actually good. weird for a friday night."

"do you go there a lot?"

the waitress brings them ice water with lime wedges perched on the rim. sanghyuk is tempted to order more alcohol, relieve himself of the stress of doing anything for the first time, but reins it in at the last second, his drunk brain catching up with his drunker mouth in the nick of time. "the restaurant?" taekwoon asks, dumping sugar into his own water and poking at it with his straw. "yeah, it's...kind of convenient. they're usually open after hours, which is cool, because i get done at the studio a little later than most people go home."

"is it that hard?" sanghyuk wonders. he wants to compliment taekwoon, both on his bravado as well as his singing voice, but thinks now isn't the best possible time for that. "voice acting, i mean."

"sometimes," taekwoon admits. "i'm kind of a perfectionist."

sanghyuk wonders, briefly, what that's like, what 'good enough' feels like when stretched to its limits. "interesting," he murmurs, sipping at his water, eyes cast down at the menu eunji had placed before him upon him taking his seat. "i can't imagine."

"have you ever done anything creative?"

sanghyuk thinks back to a time, before dongmin, before chorong, before high school graduation was even a thought in his mind. he thinks back to long hours in a dance studio that he wished he could call his own, to sweat beading on his temples and sore muscles he never realised he could tire out. he thinks to when he had a dream instead of a realistic goal, and wonders when he had time to do so much growing up between everything that had happened.

"i have," he admits, but says no more, and taekwoon is a lot of things, but merciless isn't one of them judging by the way he just nods and lets the quiet settle over them, comfortable but not blanketing.

he orders something with black garlic, unthinking of the potential the future holds. like an _idiot_. he'll have to find gum or something somehow, between here and home, provided taekwoon takes him back to his place instead of his own. it's not like that's not a thought he has, he just doesn't have it fast enough to stop himself from responding to his stomach rather than normal logic and rhetoric and the fact that he fully plans on kissing taekwoon soon as they're able to do so comfortably.

"do you like your job?" sanghyuk asks taekwoon as soon as the waitress is gone.

taekwoon shifts a little before answering, and it takes sanghyuk a half-second too long to realise that taekwoon's feet are just next to sanghyuk's thighs. he's _that_ long. christ, but does it ever take a lot of restraint not to whistle in that way that cartoon wolves do. "sometimes," taekwoon admits. "more often than not." he pauses in places where he's clearly uncomfortable, and sanghyuk wants to badly to tell him that he doesn't have to talk if he doesn't feel like it. he opens his mouth to do so but taekwoon is already continuing on, like a brave soldier. "i like meeting the kids. i don't know if you noticed, but i'm more comfortable around kids than adults."

"i noticed." sanghyuk thinks back to the taekwoon he'd met at that convention, surrounded by screaming children who were happy to see him, to hear him do his character in the flesh, not at all disturbed by the disruption of fantasy they experienced. "you also kind of told me as much at the hotel the other night."

"oh, right." taekwoon sucks in his bottom lip for a little while, humming to himself, trying to regain his conversational footing, judging by the way he stretches out his legs and groans with the effort. "it's just, you know, kids are always happy to see you. they're not judgmental. they don't care if you don't feel good, or if they do they're not going to make fun of you for it. they're just glad you're around."

for a second, sanghyuk thinks of his own son, about those days when dongmin is sick, or he's tired, or sanghyuk is too tired from working his ass off to do anything fun. and taekwoon is right, because dongmin never seems to resent sanghyuk for any of these things, though any adult probably would. he thinks of how little time he spends with his own adult friends, the amount of shit he gets from hongbin when he falls into the pattern of going a week without hanging out, and it's minimal because hongbin isn't a terrible person, but still, it's something. dongmin's sleepy smile as he toddles into sanghyuk's arms flashes through sanghyuk's mind, and he sighs, nods his agreement after a pregnant pause.

"my kid is like that," he admits. "i love him to death. i've never once regretted having him."

"and you shouldn't," taekwoon agrees. "they always know when their parents aren't really there for them. they're smarter than people seem to give them credit for."

_like you,_ sanghyuk wants to say, but that doesn't make even a lick of sense.

their food arrives, arresting any and all conversation about kids, about adults, about anything that isn't how delicious black garlic is when paired with beef. it's weird, sanghyuk realises, slowly at first but then all at once, how much he had been starved for adult company, and that he's stopped thinking of this relationship, in all its flaws and stops and starts, as an attempt to move past something else. rather, he's considering it an attempt to learn someone new.

taekwoon slurps his noodles louder than anyone sanghyuk has ever heard, and it's the cutest thing to which he's ever born witness, his own child aside. he shouldn't be surprised, but somehow taekwoon manages to surprise him without even trying.

\---

the end of the night comes way too quickly, in sanghyuk's estimation; he wishes he could climb into some sort of time machine, make these hours happen over and over again. they sober up, and wander back to taekwoon's car, occasionally tangling hands or elbows along the way, almost an unconscious gesture if only sanghyuk didn't feel this magnetic need to be closer at all times. taekwoon, for the most part, doesn't seek out these touches, but sanghyuk doesn't have it in him to take this personally, instead just sort of rationalises it as that awkwardness he's witnesses the other having throughout their little time together. "you never told me what the job opportunity was for, you know."

taekwoon, as it turns out, smokes, but only rarely; there's a slightly-rumpled pack of cigarettes in his center console, which he pulls out as soon as they're safely in the car. sanghyuk wishes he'd brought his own, considering he's not much a fan of menthol, but he takes one anyway when offered, not wanting to be a rude guest or, worse yet, make taekwoon feel ostracised when it isn't actually necessary. "what do you mean?" asks taekwoon, exhaling an enormous cloud of smoke.

"when you left the hotel room on sunday. and then you called me back the other day, finally, saying you were out of the country."

"oh, that." taekwoon takes a drag, lifts a shoulder. "i went to seoul for a day or so. it was barely worth the flight, i just had to do voiceover for a commercial. a new kid's park. like lotte, but smaller."

"did they pay you well?" sanghyuk wants to know, but immediately it feels like the wrong question to ask. he scrambles for a decent recovery. "sorry, just. i meant more like, did they take care of your airfare and whatever?"

"they did. i'm actually a little more popular over there than i am here, thanks to my mother being my agent for the longest. i just..." he looks out the window, gaze fixed on a streetlight, the cloud of moths and mosquitos that linger around its hazy glow. "i don't want to be home any more than i have to, you know?"

sanghyuk wonders what that's like, to not feel at home when you're at home. he remembers, distantly, childhood trips back to halmeoni's, forced on him by his parents, who had almost no more interest in going than he did. he's always just been here, americanised by default, and never once thought that maybe someday this place could be as uncomfortable to him as korea apparently feels to taekwoon.

"i don't know, but if you're uncomfortable doing something, then you shouldn't do it," and sanghyuk is all bravado and confidence, resting a hand on taekwoon's knee. at that exact same moment, taekwoon goes to put his empty hand on the gearshift, and as a result rests his palm directly on the burning end of sanghyuk's cigarette.

they both scream at the same time, sanghyuk from shame, taekwoon from pain, and retreat, limbs drawn in, like spiders that have been sprayed with something toxic. "oh my god, i'm so sorry, oh my god," and that instinct to protect, to take care of, kicks in, something sanghyuk had never intended. he also never intended to _set his date on fucking fire_ , in any sense of the term, so there's that.

"i'm..." taekwoon winces, injured hand to his chest, cradling it with his other. "shit, i'm sorry, i didn't mean to freak you out? i do this all the time."

"burn yourself?!" sanghyuk hides his abject horror, poorly, but he does his best. "i just-- are you alright?" he takes taekwoon's hand, holds it gently between his own, and leans down, pressing a kiss to the affected spot.

taekwoon watches, amusement mingling with pain in his gaze, turning him into something soft, almost unreadable. "you probably shouldn't breathe on an open wound," he points out matter-of-factly, and sanghyuk realises, far too late, that he is the biggest fool in the entire world.

"there's a first-aid kit at my place?" he offers, brows tinting a bit with concern.

"then that's where we'll go. do you mind driving, though?" taekwoon glances off, over sanghyuk's shoulder, something sheepish in his face. "i just...don't want to hold onto the steering wheel and make it worse."

it bears mentioning that taekwoon's car is a sports model, standard, the kind of vehicle that gearheads salivate to be able to drive. sanghyuk is not one of those gearheads, but knows a good shot to take when he hears one. "yeah, sure, definitely," he gasps, trying to keep his excitement under control, though he's certain that if he were a puppy, his tail would be going a mile a minute. "no big deal. i can drive. you wanna...?"

"right." they switch seats, going round the hood of the car, and upon passing taekwoon whispers an 'it's okay,' reassuring and gentle, into sanghyuk's ear, sentence punctuated by a kiss on sanghyuk's shoulder. even through his shirt he gets a case of the shivers.

he plunks down in the driver's seat and honestly, he has to remind himself not to do one of those fast and furious things that he's seen in films, peel out of the cantina parking lot.

when he pulls out of the parking spot, though, the band is still playing on the patio, and they shoot dirty looks at the car's windshield. taekwoon promptly responds by flipping them the bird.

sanghyuk doesn't usually believe in momentary love, but he might, just this once.

\---

they make their way to sanghyuk's apartment only for sanghyuk to have a stunning revelation: his place, on top of being pretty broken-down as far as apartments go, is basically a mess. he didn't think, when he was leaving earlier, wonsik having just taken dongmin to go to his for the evening, that he would actually invite taekwoon over in any capacity, let alone some kind of emergency. he just wasn't that type of boy, he supposed. now, though, things are different, and he's in this huge, breathless hurry to clean up the seemingly infinite toys scattered about his living room and some of the less-easily-explained anime figurines of his own. 

"you like naruto, huh?" taekwoon's voice is tinged with amusement, and sanghyuk's cheeks tingle with something like mortification, but he doesn't have it in him to express that in any other way. 

"yeah, uh, i...yeah," sanghyuk breathes. "i can't wait until dongminnie gets older and can watch it with me. he'll probably love it."

"cute." taekwoon leans against the living room wall, apparently unaware that there is a huge crack in the plaster right where his back touches it. "it's cool that you like stuff like that, even though you have a kid."

"am i not supposed to?" sanghyuk drapes a blanket over the couch to hide the holes in its cushions.

"some people don't." taekwoon follows where sanghyuk ushers him, sits on the couch, looks up at the younger with a bit of regret on his face. "sorry, i didn't mean to be, um...what's the word...condescending. it just sucks because i know so many people who used to have these big, childish dreams, they wanted to be an astronaut, or to hang out with dinosaurs, and now we laugh at that kind of thing when we shouldn't."

"yourself included?" sanghyuk sits beside him for a moment, taking taekwoon's burned hand between his own, inspecting the wound again before taking further action. "did you want to hang out with dinosaurs when you were a kid?"

"no," taekwoon says, eyes trained on the same spot sanghyuk's are. "actually, i kind of wanted to do what i do now, in a sense. i wanted to be something straight out of the cartoons i watched growing up."

"then you're doing fine," announces sanghyuk, gently resting taekwoon's hand in his lap. he disappears down the hall, into his bedroom, deeper in, into the master bath. he takes a couple moments to rifle through the cabinet under the sink. when he doesn't find what he's looking for, he swears under his breath, starting to panic. because, see, now it just looks like he's invited taekwoon back for immoral purposes, and that he had no intention of at least trying to help clean up the proverbial mess he made, back in taekwoon's car.

he looks, in short, like he's taking advantage of a situation he's not entirely sure he's allowed to take advantage of. the pitfalls, he supposes with a quiet groan, of having been in one entire relationship through the years. 

he looks in dongmin's room next, then dongmin's bathroom, and sure enough, there it is, the white first aid box with the red cross painted atop it, their name scribbled hastily in sharpie along the side. there are considerably less bandaids than there had been when sanghyuk bought it -- not necessarily the result of anything related to the scrapes and cuts a child normally incurs, but rather dongmin's fascination with putting bandaids on, letting them adhere to the skin, and peeling them off as slowly as humanly possible -- but there's enough that he can make good on his promise.

he carries the box back out to the living room, where taekwoon is waiting still, looking at the various arts on the wall. most of them are done by dongmin, scribbles and splatters of colour that look kind of cool but don't actually make sense in the context of art. "your kid?" taekwoon asks, grinning ear to ear.

"i'm pretty proud of him." sanghyuk rifles through the box as he sits back down, sinking into the couch. he pulls out antiseptic, gauze, medical tape -- a bandaid won't hold to a wound in a palm, he reasons -- and regards taekwoon with something serious in the set of his mouth. "you know this is going to hurt, right?" 

taekwoon nods.

sanghyuk opens the antiseptic, dabs some on a cotton ball, and gently presses the fabric to taekwoon's burn. the elder hisses between his teeth, scowling. "god, i hate this shit," he says, an ironic laugh biting the end of his words. "he did all of them?"

"all of..." right, dongmin's artwork. "yeah. i just kind of...wanted him to know i support him. his mom has a bunch of them at her place, you know? and that's cool, but what's the point if you don't get support from as many sides as you can?" he thinks back to the middle of high school, post-chorong, pre-dongmin, the immense disappoint in his father's eyes when he said he wanted to study dance instead of something 'useful' like accounting, pre-law, pre-med. "i don't want my kid raised like i was raised," he finishes after a too-long pause. 

taekwoon nods, but doesn't say anything, and sanghyuk is grateful that he doesn't have to explain anymore. he doesn't need to know right now if they share that same trauma, but judging by the way taekwoon had spoken earlier, about home versus here, he doesn't suppose it's that different, even if the circumstances are. 

once the wound is clean, sanghyuk sets to bandaging it, a little sloppily because the medical tape is old and not as sticky as it could be. eventually, though, taekwoon is patched up, not good as new but as good as he's gonna get considering neither of them are any type of medical professional. taekwoon leans back into the couch cushions, looking from the padding on his palm to sanghyuk's face, mouth opening and closing in wonderment. "you did a good job," he whispers.

"dr han, open for business?" sanghyuk laughs quietly, leaning back just the same, elbow balanced on the back of the couch, cheek in his hand. "seriously, though, i'm sorry. for, um, you know, burning the shit out of you on our first date."

"i'm sorry that i sang r.kelly in front of an audience of two dozen on our first date." taekwoon doesn't look at all sorry, in fact looks kind of smug, but sanghyuk isn't gonna call him out on that. 

"i'm sorry that i forgot to eat all day and was kind of sloppy in front of your friend," sanghyuk continues, though he can't quite keep the edge of competitiveness from his voice when he speaks.

"i'm sorry that i haven't kissed you yet for being such a good doctor." when did they get this close? bumping at the knees, taekwoon's face maybe an inch from his. he can almost taste the salt on taekwoon's breath, and he revels in it, little thrills rushing down his spine. 

"i'm sorry you haven't, too." still, he draws closer, pauses just before the moment of truth. "is this okay?" he asks, barely above a whisper, keenly aware of each and every point of contact their bodies make, knees and fingertips and noses.

taekwoon answers by dipping forward, kissing sanghyuk as if he's something delicate, something to be cradled and cared for.

their lips slide softly against one another at first, sanghyuk taking the lead, reaching up to tangle fingers in taekwoon's hair, keep him close in case he thinks he needs something so rudimentary as air. _grow up_ , the rough grip he has around taekwoon's locks says when he tries to gasp for breath in a moment between kisses. _you're my air,_ announce sanghyuk's fingernails, scratching almost gently along the curve of taekwoon's scalp. he teases his tongue against the less-than-firm seam of taekwoon's lips, catches the bottom between his teeth, giving it a sharp tug.

"please," he swears he hears himself whining, though taekwoon makes no mention of it in the way his body responds. he climbs into sanghyuk's lap -- a balancing act if there has ever been one -- and presses his knees into sanghyuk's hips, squeezing tight, keeping him in place as sanghyuk does with those hands in taekwoon's hair. they tangle tongues as they do limbs, heated and heavy, an air of urgency that has been building all night without them -- or, at least, without sanghyuk -- realising.

his skin prickles each time taekwoon presses closer, until they're chest-to-chest, can get no closer. he wants more, more, more, is greedy for it, doesn't really know how to deal with the need that threatens to burst him at his very seams. taekwoon kisses him again and again, and sanghyuk grounds himself by taekwoon's weight atop him, the feel of gauze and tape at the side of his neck. he's so afraid he'll disappear inside this moment, these kisses, the slick sound of their mouths as they press together over and over.

at long last, some relief comes in the form of taekwoon settling into sanghyuk's lap, pressing their crotches together, and thank god he's not the only one getting hard from this. he breathes a silent sigh of solace into taekwoon's mouth, never once stopping this amazing thing they've got going on. they rut a little, like clumsy teenagers, excited beyond reason just to have contact, taekwoon making these positively delicious noises. sanghyuk doesn't know how he never considered that, as good as taekwoon's voice is just for speaking, it's that much better when it's heavy with desire, with all the wanting inside himself.

they're just beginning to divest themselves of clothing, taekwoon's dress shirt flung over the arm of the couch in haste and sanghyuk's fingertips snaking down each and every one of his ribs, when, like something out of the world's worst nightmare, sanghyuk's phone starts vibrating in his back pocket. he doesn't need to look to know it's wonsik, because of course it is. (that, and the ringtone is specific. even still, this is the worst timeline, and the universe is smiting him by having something happen to his kid while he's in the middle of one of the best makeout sessions he's ever had in his short life.)

he pulls away despite each and every ounce of him protesting the action. "sorry, that's, um, my babysitter," he mumbles, and lifts up to pick the phone from the back of his pants. taekwoon never climbs off him, just stays poised and stock-still, planted in sanghyuk's lap, face aflame so prettily that sanghyuk wishes, wishes, _wishes_ he didn't have to stop kissing him.

he answers, still a little breathless. "hyung," he says by way of greeting. "is everything okay."

"uhhhh," and wonsik's a little more drawn-out than he would be -- sanghyuk recognises panic in his voice when he hears it. "yeah, no. dongminnie might have eaten some of the legos he brought to mine."

"he ate...the legos?" sanghyuk repeats in disbelief, all the blood draining from all of him all at once. at least he doesn't have to worry about going to the hospital with a hard-on. "okay, uh. shit." he presses his palm to his slightly-sweaty brow. "shit. take him to the ER. tell me which one because i don't remember which is closest to your house. i'll meet you there as quick as i can."

"yeah, sure," and wonsik's panic has morphed into something more like dumbfoundedness, for which sanghyuk is silently grateful. they hang up after a quick goodbye, and sanghyuk takes taekwoon's face in his hands, his phone abandoned on the couch cushion. "i'm sorry, my kid--"

"i heard," taekwoon murmurs, and he kisses the damp line of sanghyuk's brow. "do you want me to drive?"

sanghyuk's heart flutters again, those cursed butterfly wings, but he can't even bring himself to be angry, is too busy with the peachpit of anxiety lumping together in his guts. "please. wonsik hyung is gonna tell me where to go." he pauses, kisses taekwoon one last time. "thank you."

"of course," says taekwoon, smiling a little, reassuring in a time of great discomfort, taking sanghyuk’s hands in his own and giving them a firm squeeze. "anything for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so like...when i started this project i didn't really have a set update schedule (i still don't) or a real idea of where i wanted this story to go before arriving at the eventual ending (i still don't). that being said i don't...plan on making it as long a wait as i did this time. if you ever catch me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/takoyaken) not working on this for weeks at a time feel free to gently encourage me to, you know, get on it? (unless you hate it. it's fine.)


	4. don't talk to me about putting out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's just a bad weekend all around for sanghyuk. luckily taekwoon is available to ease the sting a little better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right so uhhh where'd i go  
> (iunno where i went honestly)  
> i lost all motivation to write for awhile there but i'm back  
> please enjoy ♥ i appreciate anyone and everyone who waited

the drive to the hospital is a long one, sanghyuk staring out the window, fingertips pressed into the soft flesh of his own cheek. he feels like an idiot and doesn't know why. a million worse scenarios are playing themselves out in his head, fueled by accidental viewings of true crime shows and Twitter news feeds. someone could have kidnapped dongmin and made his death look like an accident. he could have eaten a tide pod. he could have ended up in a house fire. everything he hears in hongbin's voice, the one he uses when he's talking about whatever conspiracy theory thread he's writing on twitter, until he doesn't, until taekwoon's elephant voice is the one that takes over. 

his kid is okay, right? wonsik had sounded at least kind of calm, but that doesn't really mean anything, not when his own child, his flesh and blood and entire world, could have a sharp piece of plastic ripping through his intestines. chorong will find out. she will never forgive him for picking a bad babysitter, even though wonsik is a great babysitter, and sanghyuk was the fool that left their kid alone, and what was the point of doing anything and everything he had to do in order to make a good life for a son who was just going to eat legos like it didn't even matter, and sanghyuk's mind will not, will not, will _not_ calm down--

they pull into the parking lot, and sanghyuk must be visibly shaken, even as he's looking at the flashing lights of an ambulance pulling into the emergency dock. taekwoon takes his hand, gives it a little squeeze. "everything will be okay," he says in what must be his best attempt at reassurance. at best, it's nervous. fair, understandable. sanghyuk is nervous, too. everyone here probably is.

they make their way up the entrance ramp, taekwoon holding onto sanghyuk for all he's worth. the doors slide open, revealing the sharp, medicinal smell of bleach and household cleaning products and maybe a hint of vomit, if the number of blue bags floating around the reception area are any indication. sanghyuk looks from the suffering masses to taekwoon's face, trying to find some modicum of comfort, but taekwoon looks as uncomfortable as sanghyuk feels, dizzy under the bright hospital lights. he excuses himself to use the bathroom, leaving sanghyuk alone. it's fine. sanghyuk would rather do this part by himself, anyway.

he approaches the check-in desk, sees a flurry of triage nurses wandering their way around behind the scenes. the receptionist points him in the direction of a machine, a little like an ATM. "you're gonna wanna sign in there," she says with a loud pop of her gum.

"i'm not, um, here as a patient," sanghyuk clarifies with a significant clearing of his throat. "someone brought my kid in here a little while ago, i'm just now getting here."

the woman pops her gum again, gives sanghyuk a look, and god, all the judgment in the world about anything else would feel immensely better than whatever her little eyebrow raise means. "name?"

"dongmin han," he says, feeling very small. taekwoon, back from his bathroom excursion and looking notably greener than he had upon their entry, reappears at sanghyuk's side, bumping their shoulders together. "wonsik kim brought him in. he's a friend, he was babysitting my son."

"identification?" she's already looking away, typing endlessly at the computer, probably not looking up anything significant.

"what--" sanghyuk blinks, but fumbles in his back pocket for his wallet, trying to find it and failing. he turns to taekwoon, fully aware of the utter helplessness splayed upon his face. "did i have it out at the restaurant?"

"you shouldn't have," taekwoon answers in a reedy voice. he's probably going to be sick again. "i don't remember you paying for anything. it was me taking you out and all."

then it's at the apartment. sanghyuk heaves a sigh so big he nearly flops on the floor. they'll have to go back to his place and find it and come back to the hospital. he doesn't look forward to it in advance. fortunately, the door into the back two-thirds of the ER swings open just as sanghyuk resigns himself to the length of the night ahead. wonsik is standing there, unaccompanied. sanghyuk wants to scream. "hey," he greets instead, cool and placid and unflappable. "where's dongminnie?"

"back there," wonsik tells him as sanghyuk steps closer, like that's actually an intelligent answer. "room...i think six? chorong and her date are here, too. or, uh, they were."

sanghyuk swears he feels every drop of blood inside him hit the floor, is nearly knocked over by the force of it. or maybe that's just the residual effects of sobering up in approximately seven words? he isn't sure. "you called chorong?"

"yeah, why wouldn't i?" wonsik looks puzzled, and fixes that same stare on taekwoon as he shuffles up beside sanghyuk, clearly a little disaffected. "is this your date? the elephant?"

"he isn't an elephant," sanghyuk protests weakly even as wonsik ushers them both inside, afraid that somehow all the medical personnel are going to murder him in an attempt to rush on by. "his name is taekwoon."

"i'm taekwoon. i'm probably an elephant." taekwoon's shoulders are bowing in on themselves, like he's trying to somehow make himself smaller in the hopes he'll disappear. sanghyuk actively wishes he could join in.

all three of them make their way into the open hallway, the emergency entrance hanging open, a pressurised door. that same ambulance is still there, blinking into eternity, though whatever rush the patient inside may have occurred is long gone, leaving the space in almost eerie silence. they're silent, little conversation, sanghyuk saving all his ability to speak for facing his ex, knowing he'll get the full story soon enough.

they enter an exam room, number seven instead of six, and it's just chorong. her date must have escaped when the time was right, or whatever. thank god. sanghyuk isn't sure he can take much more of the awkwardness than he's already experiencing within himself. "hey, noona," sanghyuk greets with an uncomfortable little wave, which is promptly returned. chorong doesn't seem to be very focused on him, sidled up to dongmin, who is knocked out cold on the table.

the sight sets sanghyuk's stomach to churning. he swallows down stomach acid. "what happened?"

"i borrowed legos from my sister's kid for him to play with." wonsik's tone is laced with regret. "i figured if it was the ones for a kid a little older than him, he'd still be okay. since he's so smart and everything."

sanghyuk doesn't miss the glare chorong is shooting in wonsik's direction, but forgives her that, even if no one else does. "yeah, i let him play with those sometimes. supervised."

he earns the glare instead. good. this is probably his mistake anyway.

"he was supervised, except i got a phone call from work. the manager," wonsik explained. "i was only gone a minute, except when i got back, there were definitely less legos than when i had left."

"just a minute." chorong is holding onto dongmin's hand, clearly in some kind of distress. even sanghyuk can only imagine what she's feeling. he makes a mental note to check in with her, privately, when the room isn't so crowded. "that's all it takes for a child to drown."

"he didn't drown," taekwoon points out, and everyone else turns to look at him like he's just grown a second head. "what? he didn't." the silence staggers on, and taekwoon’s shoulders are folding in again, sanghyuk unable to reach out to him to reassure him that he doesn’t have to do that. "i'm just going to stand outside."

"a good idea," chorong agrees in a tone that is completely different than the girl sanghyuk had fallen for all those years ago. scared. angry. confused. hurt. he sees it all in her face, but still, he wishes he could fix it, for everyone’s sake.

as taekwoon makes a hasty retreat, wonsik gets the chance to finish his explanation, though he does it with great hesitation, watching taekwoon go with some obvious regret in the soft wrinkles around his eyes. "anyway, uh, we got here, and honestly, dongmin seemed like he was doing okay, except he was a little antsy. kinda like when someone has to pee?" he offers a shrug. "i figured he just felt weird about being here or something. i know i did. but then the doctor started poking him in his stomach, and it hurt him pretty badly. he, uh, he yelled a bunch. the doctor sedated him as soon as chorong got here and could give consent and he's been out cold ever since. they took him for x-rays, brought him back right before you got here." there's a moment of blankness, wonsik clearly trying to decide if he's told the story to the best of his ability, then he nods.

"is he gonna be okay?" sanghyuk looks from the evident satisfaction on wonsik's face to the peaceful, sleeping expression on his son's to the lines in chorong's forehead, making her seem much older than she actually is. "like...i don't really know what happens..."

"none of us do." chorong sets her mouth in a prim line. sanghyuk takes a moment to appreciate how pretty she looks, all done up for a date interrupted. he loves her, but when his heart goes to complete what his mind gets started, it's interrupted by the image of taekwoon laughing, singing, chowing down on some good noodles. at least that part isn’t ruined.

he goes to her side, rests a hand heavily on her shoulder, thumbs over the curve of it in the way he used to do when she was anxious during her pregnancy. "it's okay, noona, we're gonna take care of him."

she lifts her head, and her eyes are a little watery; he hadn't been able to tell until he got this close. when she brushes a tear away, he softens for her, just a little bit. is this moving on? he can't tell, and the borders between heart and head are blurrier than they normally would be. he doesn't know how to process this.

he's interrupted from having to when the doctor enters the room. all three of them look at her, a short woman, her long, dyed hair pulled back from her face. "dongmin han?" she asks, as if she doesn't know who the patient is. wonsik steps aside to reveal dongmin's sleeping form. "okay, so, it says here that we took him for x-rays."

"you didn't," wonsik points out, chorong nodding along listlessly, so well it seems an entire room full of people are judging a medical professional. "a tech did."

"...right." the doctor is already flipping through her folder, finding the films and putting them up on a glowing white board. she points to a couple of pretty sizable blips on the films. "these are the legos that dongmin ingested." she traces a path down, unmapped on the photo, its edges blurred. "this is how they're going to come out. we're going to keep himovernight for observation in case there's some kind of perforation that goes on while he passes the legos. sound good?"

dongmin stirs, just a little, and chorong nearly jumps out of her skin, squeezing his hand as she refocuses on him. sanghyuk sighs, hating the idea of having to be the responsible one here. "it does sound good," he agrees. "sorry, his mom...he's never really had issues like this before."

"oh, no, it's fine, happens all the time," and the doctor is speaking in a very obvious customer service voice, the sort that make wonsik and sanghyuk shudder in unison. then she walks right on out, leaving the films of dongmin's intestines up on the backlight.

soon as the door closes behind her, sanghyuk stoops, lips to chorong's ear. "noona, d'you wanna go get some rest?" he offers, and he isn't sure where this act of kindness is coming from, had thought himself immune to random bouts of love for her. "it's my week, i'll stay until they say he can go."

chorong considers this a long, long, long time. then she gets up, zombified, and pulls sanghyuk into a huge hug, arms around his neck, pulling him to her level and nearly knocking him to the floor in the process. "thank you, sanghyuk," she murmurs into the side of his neck. "text me and let me know how everything is going?"

"yeah, i will. go home. get some sleep. find your date first, maybe?"

“yeah, i...yeah.” she sniffles when she draws away, scrubs at the corner of her eye with the heel of her palm. she looks so beautiful, and so distraught, and sanghyuk wants to go back in time, prevent any of this from happening. but he can't, so when chorong bows her head, backs out of the room with regretful eyes on dongmin's still-sleeping frame, he just sort of smiles and gives her a wave, the most awkward situation of all time.

he has the decency to wait a minute before ducking into the hallway, but when he peeks around the corner, taekwoon is already gone. sanghyuk already mourns what their date could have been.

wonsik is still waiting by dongmin's bedside, and he gives sanghyuk a look of something bordering sympathy. "he left?"

"yeah." sanghyuk gently ushers wonsik out of the seat he's occupied, the only chair in the room not clearly meant for a doctor. "you can go, too, you know, i'm not going to make you stay here with me if you don't want. i know you're opening the store tomorrow."

"oh, speaking of which..." wonsik bites his lip, eyes darting back and forth, looking so sketchy that sanghyuk wants to tell him to come out with it already. "you remember that call, from the manager? i, um, wanted to let you know that they gave me the job, and i start training in the next week."

"cool," replies sanghyuk, exhausted to the point of feeling it in his bones. "seriously, though, you can go."

nodding, wonsik claps sanghyuk on the shoulder before disappearing, and sanghyuk swears he can see the cartoonish outline where wonsik had just been.

it is only several hours after they've parted, an entire trip up to the third floor with dongmin on one of those wheeled beds that give sanghyuk the creeps, and a little time of sitting in relative darkness as incompetent interns attempt to poke his son with needles that sanghyuk realises what it is wonsik had needed to tell him.

"son of a bitch," sanghyuk whispers to no one at all. beside him dongmin stirs a little.

"dad?" comes the mumble.

"hi, honey," sanghyuk greets, trying his best to look calming which, at the moment, is an absolute fucking accomplishment. "how you feeling?"

\-----

the next day, when dongmin is released, a shiny new bruise on the back of his hand and several promises to go to the park after school one day this week given him, they finally make it home, and dongmin immediately announces he's going to take a nap in front of the television. chorong would die; she swears up and down it's bad for kids to have that kind of disturbance when they sleep, because then they'll get used to it, and need it all the time. the way sanghyuk figures, the kid's been through enough the last day or so. he deserves to unwind with a chocolate milk and some TV.

sanghyuk is in the middle of texting hongbin pretty much everything that had happened the night prior, purposely disincluding the part where he and taekwoon had made out on his age-pockmarked couch, when someone else attempts to make contact. taekwoon. sanghyuk can't deny the way his heart quickens.

_how's dongminnie?_ reads the message, and it's dumb, because caring about a kid is such a basic human thing to do, but he likes it, likes knowing that someone outside his normal life actually pays enough attention to ask.

_fine,_ answers sanghyuk in record time. _we're home now, resting. he's still kind of medicated._

_how are you?_ taekwoon, however, takes his sweet time replying, and sanghyuk realises that maybe he shouldn't put expectations on someone who is clearly going somewhere with his life. all over again, the reality of sanghyuk losing out on a promotion he's basically already been working washes over him, and he crumbles in on himself.

_not great._ sanghyuk wants to go into detail, if only to have someone safe to vent to, but then realises that a lot of last night had ended up being about him, and he doesn't want to be selfish. well, okay, he does, but not to the extent that he knows he needs to be. _you left,_ is what he settles on before pressing send.

_yeah. mom said she was happy you had a new boyfriend._

sanghyuk stares at this for a long, long, long while, puzzling, wondering what that could possibly mean, and if chorong had meant any harm. probably not, he decides, though he's definitely going to ask her about it later. _you aren't my boyfriend._

_see, that's what i thought._ in his mind's eye, sanghyuk can see the little smile playing at taekwoon's mouth, not quite as self-satisfied as it deserves to be. he does the same, not with any intention in mind so much as just considering his luck in being able to get close to someone who knows how to make a joke. a minute passes, and then: _generally, a boyfriend gets to take someone on dates more than just the once before calling themselves that._

_are you trying to ask me out again?_

a little bit of a pause occurs here, and sanghyuk worries if maybe he'd been a bit too presumptuous, bottom lip caught between his teeth til he's sure he tastes his own blood. _only if you're interested. maybe i won't have to take advantage of your amazing first-aid skills._

sanghyuk makes a noise of great distress. _yeah. i have dongminnie this week, but maybe when he goes to his mom's?_

_or we could do something kid-friendly. i'm not opposed._

in the back of his mind, the protest springs up: sanghyuk can't kiss taekwoon the way he did before when dongmin is around. but why not? his kid deserves to see that his parents can be happy in relationships, whatever they might be. and while there definitely won't be any of that fancy lap-sitting they were doing last night, there can at least be some hand-holding.

he wants to be a good example. _what do you have in mind?_

_pretty much whatever he wants to do. i know how this goes. i have this nephew who basically runs my life whenever i see him._

taekwoon is already so cute and soft when kids are around -- sanghyuk's already in the middle of a flashback to that cartoon character convention, the brightness of his smile, how relaxed he'd been -- that to think of him around a child he actually knows threatens to melt sanghyuk from the heart on out. _he wants to go to the park tomorrow._

the only response he gets is a cat kaomoji, and sanghyuk likes it so much that he saves it as taekwoon's name in his contact info. after a moment's hesitation he adds a heart, too.

\-----

sanghyuk thinks he must be the second-worst date of all time: he's brought his study books to the park. even dongmin gives him a rueful look for that. on the plus side: he's also brought a picnic for the three of them to share. it's just sandwiches and chips and fruit and juice for dongmin, water for the adults, but it's enough of an accomplishment for sanghyuk to feel as if he's managed to banish the existential crisis weighing heavy on his shoulders.

"sorry," he apologises to taekwoon, who immediately fits their hands together even as sanghyuk flaps a book at him. "i have a practise exam tomorrow and i thought i would at least do something to make it feel like i'm a little prepared." dongmin has already abandoned them, for the most part, screaming a streak across the park in the direction of the swingset. "dongminnie! stay where i can see you, okay?"

"OKAY DAD LOVE YOU!!!" the scream doesn't stop until dongmin has flopped into the swing of his choosing.

"it's fine," taekwoon says with a nod and a hint of a smile, and he hadn't been kidding when he'd said he was better around kids; the disappearing act dongmin just pulled leaves him wooden and uncomfortable, though he doesn't seem to want to let on as much. "i just sort of, um, missed you? and wanted to apologise. leaving like that wasn't okay."

"oh, yeah," and sanghyuk is already scanning the green for a nice, empty spot for them to occupy, tugging at the edge of the blanket he's got draped over his mini-cooler. "what did she say, exactly, that made you so uncomfortable?"

"she didn't scare me off, i scared myself off." they approach a little patch of grass halfway between the swingset and the jungle gym, and sanghyuk spreads out the blanket beneath their feet, only halfway focused on taekwoon when he wants to be fully concentrated. "i haven't been someone's boyfriend in awhile, and usually i only date people in the industry."

"is this weird for you?" he's already settled on the blanket, book in his lap, though he's looking up and up and up at taekwoon, so tall sanghyuk has to crane his neck. "me not being a voice actor, i mean."

"no," taekwoon counters quickly, taking a seat beside sanghyuk and drawing his knees up under his chin, again making attempts to look small. sanghyuk wonders if this is a conscious effort of his, one he makes all the time; it's cute, but taekwoon deserves to occupy as much space as he needs, and sanghyuk has no idea how to encourage him. "no, that's...a really small world and an even small dating pool, especially when you're gay and korean and a bunch of your coworkers are racist and a bunch of the people trying to hire you want you to do really bad chinese accents."

"you aren't chinese," sanghyuk points out as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"yeah, i know," taekwoon sighs. "what are you studying for?" he looks grateful for the chance to change the subject.

"huh? oh, my ACT. i'm trying to get into a college that doesn't make me want to die." if i can even get into college, he adds silently. "did i ever tell you i was going up for a promotion at work?"

"no, you didn't mention it." taekwoon shifts, finally getting the hint that it's okay to spread out a little -- he'd literally been taking up an entire corner of the blanket, no more -- and kicks out his leg, groaning with the effort of it. even sanghyuk winces at that. "sorry. getting old. what about it?"

"my friend, the one that was in the ER the other night? he got it instead of me, even though i'm the one who's been filling while our manager has been training other stores to be fronts for body-hiding businesses. i've made schedules and looked over applications for new employees and made sure everything was good every closing shift i worked, the whole bit, but they gave it to him."

taekwoon frowns, and sort of absentmindedly fishes into the picnic basket, pulling away with a bottle of water for himself, which he immediately cracks into. "that sucks," he mumbles once his lips are wrapped around the mouth of the bottle. "why do you think they did that?"

"i don't know," sanghyuk answers, irritated by the prospect all over again, "but i've decided that i'm just gonna dedicate myself to getting into school, finally, so that i can be done with the whole thing."

"how long have you been with the mob front?"

"oh, god, uh...since i graduated high school. so a few years."

"you're just now going to college?" it doesn't hold any of the judgmental malice sanghyuk usually faces when he gets questions like these. if anything, taekwoon seems to be somewhat impressed by it. "because of dongmin, right?"

"yeah. he was only a year old when i graduated. he never had any issues or things like that, i just..." he thinks about it, distraction clear in the way he trails off: about chorong deciding to move out soon as she'd figured out she was pregnant, about all the fights he had to console her over, about working even before he graduated, overnight at some convenience store where he'd had to lie about his age to even get a job in the first place, and the pay was alright but not near enough to pay for an apartment and all the expenses of a kid, too. chorong had worked too, at a daycare around the corner from her new place, but they were just barely able to make ends meet. they fought constantly, sanghyuk sleeping on the ratty second-hand couch more nights than not, and broke up more than their fair share of times before ending it for good. by that point sanghyuk already had his job at the mattress store, and a little seniority to go with it. "i needed to focus on taking care of my new family, you know? school was about the last thing on my mind when i had a baby crying in my ear at 3am. hell, it was the last thing on my mind as soon as chorong went to the doctor that first time."

"it's cool that you want to go back." taekwoon is obviously refraining from asking something, but sanghyuk isn't entirely sure he knows what that something is, and is afraid to find out. "i mean, i think about it sometimes? just because...you know, i could always be better at what i do now, or do something else entirely, but...this is kind of all i know." he pauses. "plus my mom would be heartbroken if i quit doing this thing she's done so well at managing."

"what do you want to do, then, if not voice acting?" sanghyuk perks curiously, pokes around in the basket himself and finds an apple, which he immediately crunches into. he even has the decency to forget all his proper date manners, flashing a grin with a mouthful of fruit and crunchy skin.

"i don't know. anything. i get tired of a lot of it, i guess. not the kids. just...everything else. everything's political."

"yeah..." sanghyuk struggles to understand, at least for a minute, but then he remembers school as he'd once known it, and figures it's better not to ask. "whatever you want to do, i know you can."

taekwoon looks thoughtful, but says nothing, and sanghyuk doesn't have it in him to pretend that not getting an answer worries him to death.

dongmin comes running up to them just then, as sanghyuk is trying to bury his nose in the book he'd so thoughtfully chosen to bring along. "DAD I FOUND SOME ANTS I WANNA TAKE THEM HOME CAN I TAKE HOME THE ANTS PLEASE?"

sanghyuk laughs, and taekwoon does too, the two of them exchanging glances as if to ask what can possibly be done about kids, anyway. "no, kiddo, you cannot take home the ants.” he pauses, humming around the idea. “if you do okay this week at school and don't get any of those little clothespin moving stamps, i'll talk to your mom about getting you one of those ant farm things. tThat way you can't just have loose ants hanging out, all willy-nilly. does that sound okay?" he remembers that chorong had wanted to get him a little dog for his birthday, and wonders if, historically speaking, dogs and ants have ever gotten along.

they probably haven't. he'll try anyway. he doesn't spoil his son, but a couple reasonable requests are acceptable.

dongmin, satisfied with this answer, goes back to playing, leaving taekwoon and sanghyuk alone again, only the echo of his joyful screams remaining. "he's so cute," taekwoon practically coos, and it's the most precious thing sanghyuk has heard in at least five seconds. his heart does a funny thing, and he could explain it, but he doesn't really feel like trying, instead cosying up to his apple. he almost doesn't notice when taekwoon curls closer, so that they might sit together.

"can i help you study?" asks taekwoon.

"yeah, i'd like that," sanghyuk answers, grinning around a mouthful.

they stay there until the sun goes down and the police who patrol the area roll by, telling everyone they have to leave because the gates are about to be closed. sanghyuk is pretty sure he's got a sunburn; he deeply appreciates the past version of him that had been paying attention enough to have doused dongmin in sunscreen soon as they'd hopped out of the car.

dongmin sleeps soundly in the backseat, occasionally twitching to life for the sole purpose of mumbling something about ants, only to fall back asleep. taekwoon holds sanghyuk's free hand as he drives.

when they pull up to sanghyuk's apartment building, sanghyuk doesn't want the evening to end. "do you wanna come hang out with us for a little bit?"

"yeah," says taekwoon, even though his tone is laced with regret in advance of what he says next, "but i have to go into the studio early tomorrow and i'd hate to inconvenience you." he leans over the center console of sanghyuk's minivan and dusts a kiss to the apple of his cheek. "i'll text you when i'm home, though?"

"please. tell me when you're home and safe." sanghyuk, just for a second, wonders when he started caring so much. probably somewhere between algebraic equations and grammar problems. "let's go out again sometime. maybe when dongminnie is back with his mom, yeah?"

"definitely." taekwoon flashes a real smile, then leans into the backseat to offer a wave and a whispered goodnight to the sleeping child in question. "night, dongminnie, it was nice to see you again."

he crosses the lot and climbs back into his car. sanghyuk can't help but stare after him.

\-----

"you already had a date?" hongbin's muffled over the mic, probably has his face tucked into his shoulder in that way he does when he and sanghyuk are in the middle of gaming. he scores a double kill, and sanghyuk sighs as he's sent to respawn at the opposite end of the map.

"two dates," sanghyuk reminds him gently, waiting for the cooldown period to end, tapping his fingertips against the triggers beneath them. "the one on sunday counts."

"he helped you study, and your kid was there. i don't think that counts."

"it completely counts." sanghyuk dies again and when he's sent back to the spawn point sets his controller down, more ready to argue about the legitimacy of a date than die a third time in a row. today just isn't his day for anything, it seems, overwatch included. "why wouldn't it count? also how would you know? you've been on approximately two dates in his life."

"coaches don't play, y'know," hongbin tells him with the utmost seriousness, landing a triple kill this time. "and anyway, even if it did count -- which it doesn't, because study dates when you're not in any kind of school don't count, and barely count when you're actually _attending_ school of some kind -- it wouldn't matter because you haven't been out again."

"so what you're saying," sanghyuk intones, flat as he possibly can despite his instinct which tells him to argue hongbin within an inch of his fucking life, "is that i can't put out until the date after this?"

"first of all, don't talk to me about putting out, i'm disgusted and never want to think about your dick again." the match ends, and hongbin is, of course, awarded play of the game. "second of all, technically you can put out whenever you want. nothing is stopping you, except maybe social convention, which was invented by the government to control us, and your own cowardice."

"i'm not a coward," grumbles sanghyuk, relieved that he can kick back onto his couch and stretch out. "i've never been a coward in my whole life. I’ll show you what social convention keeps me from doing."

"the point is, you can sleep with him if you really want to, but it seems like you're having a better time getting to know him than you would banging him."

"i kind of am, yeah. did i tell you he wants to go back to school?”

"yeah, about sixty times," and hongbin makes that sound that only hongbin can make, and only in relation to anyone ever doing anything to do with relationships. "we get it. you've fallen head over heels for this guy. you don't need to repeat yourself. unless your coding has somehow gone haywire?"

"my coding-- are you saying i'm a robot?" sanghyuk glares at his mic out of the very corner of his eye, the same look he'd give hongbin were they having this conversation face-to-face, albeit without the noogie he'd probably include with his disbelief. "i'm not a fuckin' robot."

"hey, i'm having a party this weekend."

"that doesn't sound like you," sanghyuk mocks openly in an attempt to hide concern over something he probably shouldn’t even be concerned with.

"it doesn't. my hand is forced. anyway, now that you're not up for a managerial upgrade, you wanna come and make this bullshit at least a little more bearable?"

"your hand is forced how?"

"nevermind. yes or no. if not i can always invite wonsik."

"you're going to invite him anyway."

"that's true. is it weird, you two seeing each other?"

"no, not really? we've worked a couple shifts together, and it's a little bit awkward, but only because i don't know what to say that isn't somehow related to my need for him to suffer like i've suffered pretending to be a manager for the better part of six months."

"right. okay. well. do you wanna come or not?"

sanghyuk pauses, still needing more information, but figuring it can't hurt, especially not when he hasn't done a whole lot to unwind in the past half-year. "can i bring taekwoon?"

"long as you promise not to hook up in my bedroom." he can see the look on hongbin's face now, the way the bridge of his nose wrinkles when his upper lip draws to reveal the most impressive sneer someone so handsome could possibly wear. "yeah, he can come. i don't care. sucks wonsik met him first when i'm clearly your best friend."

a dopey grin passes over sanghyuk's face; he catches it reflected in his television screen when he shuts it off. "so your bathroom and wherever else is fair game? cool, cool, i'll keep that in mind."

"oh, don't be nasty, dude, i don't need you ruining my totally sex-free apartment." but hongbin is laughing, sanghyuk knows it by the little quaver in his voice. "come over early, i'll feed you and get you drunk before your elephant boyfriend shows up."

"he's not my boyfriend."

there's a tense, almost-serious silence between the pair of them, and then hongbin chances to ask: "why not?"

sanghyuk stares at the popcorn ceilings, at dongmin's drawings lining the walls, at the smattering of toys that cover the living room floor. _why not?_ he rolls off the couch and onto the floor, excuses himself from the conversation and promises to message hongbin when he's up for actually playing again.

the question haunts him the rest of the night: as he studies, as he gives dongmin his bath, as he cooks them both dinner, as he puts himself to bed at a reasonable hour of 3am. he thinks about messaging taekwoon over the question in specific, but then decides better. they haven't talked a lot today, though, and privately sanghyuk misses messages punctuated with cat emoji. so with heavy eyes, he pulls his phone out from under his pillow.

_i got invited to a party this weekend, you wanna go?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not going to make any extravagant promises because i have literally no idea when inspiration for this is going to strike again but i am going to say that i have a definitive endgame in mind here and would like to share it eventually, thank you again if you've been anything remotely resembling patient with me while i tried to work out life things and not get bogged down in my own head so much ☆

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know that this will have a Lot of chapters because there's not a ton for me to say but it didn't feel right to put everything out at once  
> (mostly because i'm with y'all, i have no idea what's gonna happen lmfao)  
> as ever, come bother me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/takoyaken) for updates and the opportunity to yell at me for not writing


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